Tripping Back to Wilder Times: Exploring Liminality with Recoil and 'Britannia'
Back in 2011,
I saw Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem at the Apollo in London. Much has been
written about Mark Rylance’s phenomenal performance in the lead role as Johnny
‘Rooster’ Byron, part drunken ne’er-do-well, part drug-dealing father figure to
lost teenagers, and anarchic master of revels in rural Wiltshire. He lives in a
caravan in a wood and is permanently threatened with eviction and violence.
He’s also a teller of tall tales, claiming that he once met a giant who built
Stonehenge, who gave him a golden drum to beat in the event that he ever needed
help. Surely a cock-and-bull story. Or did those [giant] feet in ancient time really
walk upon England’s mountains green? I remember being mesmerised watching a
bloodied and beaten Byron at the play’s end banging his drum and summoning ‘Gog
and Magog, Galligantus, Vili and Ve, Yggdrasil, Brutus of Albion’ and other
‘lost gods of England’. Does he really believe? Will they come to him in his
hour of need? Butterworth gave us a darkly comedic vision of modern Britain,
but beneath the contemporary social issues, the drink and drugs, and the
partying, the play had a lot to say about ‘folklore and religion, community and
exclusion, land and ownership’ (Evening Standard). So I suppose it’s no
great surprise to find that these themes are very much at the core of Britannia,
the television series Butterworth co-wrote and directed alongside his brother,
which ran for three seasons between 2018 and 2021. It starred Mackenzie Crook,
David Morrissey, and Zoe Wanamaker, amongst others, all of whom were very good.
Generally
speaking, I find it jarring when history is ‘modernised’ and made ‘relatable’
in TV shows. I especially dislike history being flagrantly mucked about with. I
have been known to shout at the TV along the lines of, ‘Well, they got that
completely wrong! That couldn’t have happened’ and ‘That person never actually
existed’ and ‘So, how are they going to carry on the dynasty now that they’ve
killed that character off before she had the child who became the heir? They’ve
ruined it’. That sort of thing. I don’t get out much to give the anorak a wear.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d like Britannia, as it isn’t exactly a
blow-by-blow, as close as we can get it, historically accurate account of the
Roman invasion of Britain. However, some licence can be allowed here, since the
only contemporary written history we have is what came down to us from the
Romans. It’s all that ‘written by the victors’ stuff. And there’s a lot it
doesn’t say. Butterworth et al. have given us, in Britannia, a fantasy
drama replete with not only lines of legionaries and stern Roman officers but
also dreadlocked druids, demon kings, human sacrifice, sacred missions, and otherworldly
visions (possibly, probably, mostly drug-induced). The Romans may be invading,
but there are darker, deeper, more ancient forces at work in the struggle
between them and the Britons. Belief systems are changing; cherished convictions
are being rocked, challenged, and questioned. Which is, of course, something
that happens everywhere, all the time.
To say Britannia
is trippy sounds pejorative. I think it’s alive with a sort of structured
anarchy. You just have to go with it. It’s certainly unusual, managing to
successfully blend horror, drama, suspense, and comedy. That’s life, though,
innit? Morality isn’t cut and dried in the show, which always makes things much
more interesting and (ironically, for a fantasy drama) more realistic. Violence
is not shied away from, and for me, one of the worst moments was a graphic
human sacrifice scene (it was the sound of bits and pieces being carved up and
out and cracking bones being wrenched from muscle fibres. I was eating a
sandwich when I first watched it. Wouldn’t recommend doing this). But hey, this
is supposedly what people believed in back then. On the other hand, there’s plenty
of Pythonesque humour, with some cracking dialogue offering light relief, as
in: ‘So, beheading your best mate, what set you off down that particular road?
Do you have any regrets? Was it hard? Easy? Gruesome? Exciting? Terrifying?’ Two
high as a kite Roman soldiers who’ve discovered and partaken of some British
herbal remedies in an abandoned dwelling start questioning the relative merits
of various gods in different cultures: ‘If we think Horus is b*llocks and [the
Egyptians] think Mars is b*llocks, maybe both are b*llocks. Maybe it’s all b*llocks.
[…] We are alone, Brutus. We are alone.’ This is obviously serious stuff, mind
you, and the writers give us some shrewd observations: ‘You don’t enter the
underworld; the underworld enters you.’ How very true. You know it is. There
are some eternal and recurring themes in Britannia, including sibling
relationships, internecine struggles undermining a greater struggle against an
external threat, cycles, control, legacy, sacrifice, change, and most of all,
the power of belief and what happens when it starts to crumble. You could say
it’s capturing a moment in which everything is teetering on the brink, on the
cusp, suspended between worlds, between past and future, here and far away, childhood
and adulthood, ignorance and wisdom. The character of Cait (without spoiling
things for those who haven’t watched it) seems to me to represent Britain itself
because she is the person inhabiting this liminal space perhaps more fully and
in various ways than anyone else in the show.
And now we
need to talk about music. It is fashionable these days to use pop and rock
music in period dramas, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. It does,
in Britannia. Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ and ‘Season of the Witch’
provide the music for the opening titles of seasons 1 and 2, respectively, with
T-Rex’s ‘Children of the Revolution’ on board for season 3. Donovan’s ‘Barabajagal’
also features and somehow seems designed as the sonic accompaniment to the entrance
on an elephant of a Roman emperor beset (as we learn) by piles. This observation
is intended as a compliment to Donovan, by the way. Throughout the series, we
also (amongst others) enjoy splodges of Cream, glimpses of the Small Faces, and
get to peer briefly into Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’. David Gilmour gives us
‘Murder’, and Blind Faith can’t find their way home. The lyrics really work
with the storyline with that one. This is all topped off by Neil Davidge’s
effective incidental music.
So, where
does Recoil fit into all this? Believe me, I can fit anything anywhere if I
feel like it. Actually, it was Recoil’s music that put me in mind of Britannia
and persuaded me to go and watch it all over again (did I mention that I don’t
get out much?). I was talking about liminality earlier on, and there’s
something about Recoil that seems to sit right there, in the shadowy hours
before dawn, accompanying you on a dark night of the soul. You’re somewhere in
transition, betwixt and between, where trepidation, insight, and inspiration can
arise in equal measure. It’s intense stuff, and you do have to be prepared to
really listen and immerse yourself. Do not let this put you off. Anyway, in the
swirling mists of my not particularly remarkable imagination, Recoil provided
the perfect alternative soundtrack to Britannia. I don’t know why; these
things happen. I am aware that Alan Wilder’s work has been used in soundtracks
for games and at least one movie, so it’s not really surprising that it suggests
itself as an atmospheric aural complement to dramatic visuals. But which tracks
to choose? What about remixes? I mulled it over, over cheese and wine (incidental
and irrelevant). The Celtic Otherworld was supposedly a different reality,
existing in parallel to this one, somehow neither here nor there, and reached
via pools and portals (watch the show). Hence tales of ladies emerging with
magic swords from lakes and the deposition of things and sometimes people into
bodies of water by way of offerings to deities. I think it’s time to figuratively
dive into this alternate space (well, my own, really) and see how Recoil might
reflect Romano-British rivalries.
Let’s begin,
appropriately enough, with ‘Intruders’. A sound like a sinister singing bowl
prowls the intro here, and those intruders will ‘just keep coming’. The
sentiment is obviously relevant to the Roman incursion, but I think this is
also one for Cait, for a life and youth interrupted, for fear, for anger, as
she longs for a release from her burdens. This is a young girl compelled to
assume a role imposed upon her by others and to connect with dangerous forces she
cannot understand. ‘Don’t Look Back’ is another one for Cait, caught between
worlds, feeling lost and alone, missing relatives, haunted by visions.
Douglas
McCarthy’s menacing vocal on ‘Incubus’ fits perfectly with the eternal conflict
represented by the enigmatic and dangerous first and second men, Harka and
Veran:
‘I am the shadow /I am the evening come / I am your greatest
fear / Your greatest love / Born in ten thousand ways / for each and every day
/ I am alive […] There are too many of me / too many to kill / They're in my
head / They know my name / My name is death but I am alive / I am alive’.
I won’t
explain more; you’ll just have to watch to see what I mean.
Amena is a
great character, damaged, twisted, and driven by an overwhelming instinct for
self-preservation, and we see why as her backstory unravels. I’d choose ‘Want’ to
represent her. The instrumental version is great, but I feel we need Nicole
Blackman’s superb, insistent lyrics, notwithstanding potential anachronisms
(not such a big deal in this show):
‘I want to strangle the stars for all they promised me […] I
want you to understand that my malevolence is just a way to win […] I want to
reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back […] And I want and I
want and I want and I will always be hungry’.
For Hemple
and Vitus in season 3, let’s have ‘Prey’. Wilder’s thunderous and oppressive
music establishes exactly the right tone. Splendid use of homophones in Richardson’s
lyrics, too. Not giving spoilers, but it works with the onscreen action: ‘You
better pray boy, pray / Because you're prey boy, prey / You better pray boy,
pray / Get down on your knees’.
There are a
few bloody fighting scenes in Britannia. Eminently suitable as an aural
accompaniment to imminent violent termination is the raucously hypnotic ‘The
Killing Ground (Solid State Mix)’. There is a terrible rhythmic certainty to
death, compelling in all its attendant horror. This track could equally be used
alongside depictions of human sacrifice—that religious reflection of the
battlefield where the rite isn’t purely allegorical but highlights the bloody
nature of faith and the attempts to uphold it. It’s just another theatre of
war, intersecting with politics, and just as costly.
With my next
selection, I can’t avoid being reminded by the title of Vortigern, but he was a
Dark-Age British ruler, so much later than the Britannia era. It’s just
a synophone. Anyway, the instrumental version of ‘Vertigen’ is both sweeping
and unsettling, and it suggests to me (particularly around two minutes into the
track) aerial shots of the British landscape, green and magnificent, ripe for
the taking. However, within a minute, you could be with the druids, harsh and
mysterious, as howling and haunting voices burst forth and hang in the air.
Speaking of
druids, I feel we’ve got to have the Sensational Alex Harvey Band cover, ‘Faith
Healer’ for Veran. You can’t not, really, can you? ‘All you've got to do's
believe’, after all. Everything is the will of the gods. And it gives us more
splendid, intimidating raucousness.
And now we
come to a couple of my personal Recoil favourites. Firstly, ‘5000 Years (A
Romanian Elegy for Strings)’. It’s hypnotic, driving, dramatic, and ominous. Lovely,
bluesy strings build to a climax, and ‘your world's crumblin' down / Peace
can't be known, that dove has flown’. Here are the power struggles between the
Romans and the Britons. Here is a state of eternal conflict that the show highlights
so well.
Next is ‘Jezebel’.
Ah, this inverse hymn to Lady Ahab is wonderful in all its various renderings.
The original version is intense, swirling, majestic, and magical, but the Slick
Sixty V Rj Remix (‘what have you done for God lately?’), Ehren von Allen’s
Seductress Mix (cannot get this one out of my head), and the Edobot Remix all
reveal different aspects of ‘Jezebel’’s personality. With so many powerful
ladies on the show (Antedia, Amena, Kerra, Ania, Hemple), all with complex
characters, lovable, loathsome, awesome, and awful, why can’t I have all the
mixes? They’re too good not to have them all. And it’s my favourite.
‘Strange
Hours ‘10’ (feat. The Black Ships) is for Aulus Plautius. Well, he does keep
strange hours, always questing, resolute, and indulging in covert activities. His
is the dark heart of Britannia. This version of the track has the
requisite grit, especially with Diamanda Galás’s rasping vocals, and lyrically,
it’s entirely apposite:
‘I'm gonna walk on up to heaven / I'm sure you’ll see me
there / Might be the last dead man to make it / Hell yes, I know that I’ll get
there […] I may be trailing you in ashes / but you know that I'll be there / I
will find you there’.
The counterpart
to Aulus is Divis, gifted, possessed, and cast out from the druids. He is the
maverick, yet ever faithful; he is the person who embodies fate in its assorted
guises. For him, we shall have ‘Backslider’. We might have the Ambient Version
as well as the original at different points for this eccentric with a mission
and a Big Pebble. What do you do when you’re trying to do the right thing and
fulfil destiny, but there’s a demon in you? Nothing you can do; you ‘can't slay
the dragon when he's runnin' through your veins’. Maybe it’s all meant to be… Ever
think of that?
So, there we
are. I’ve done a little reimagining of something reimagined. One thing on top
of another. And with all of its layers and gradations, I feel there is something
topographical about Wilder’s work. There are all these prominences inserting
themselves into the atmospheres he creates with his various collaborators. Recoil’s
is a substantial landscape. Every inch is filled. You’ll know what I mean when
you listen (I can’t get too pretentious about this, you know, and there’s a
limit to how articulate I can be). But there is something linear in the music,
too: the impression of an evolving journey as well as a feeling. In this, it
reflects the sense in Britannia of connections both solid and fragile, of
inevitable advancement (though naturally not without looking back), of being in
transition, and of all the mixed emotions of fear, turmoil, anticipation, and
excitement that, to some degree, exist within us all the time. Wilder’s work
inhabits this space, rich in its uncertainty. In a new world, will you be lost
or found? In the end, it probably doesn’t really matter, since all roads
ultimately lead to Rome anyway, if you catch my drift. What a thing it is to
live in interesting times. Fear not; it’ll all be over in a flash. Be
mesmerised in the moment. Have fun in the dark.
Choosing
Recoil videos was a bit of a nightmare for me (probably something appropriate
there with all this dark symbolism going on), since I am a poor decision-maker. I’ve selected ‘Jezebel’ and ‘5000
Years (A Romanian Elegy for Strings’) because they’re favourites of mine, but
I’d definitely recommend checking out Wilder’s Recoil music. You may need to let
it grow on you, but once you do, it will, and you’ll probably be hooked (no
apologies for my mixed idioms).
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth ISBN: 9781848420502
‘Intruders’ Written
by: Carla Trevaskis, Joe Richardson, Alan Wilder. From the album subHuman by
Recoil.
‘Don’t Look
Back’ Written by: Sonya Aurora Madan and Alan Wilder. From the album Liquid by
Recoil.
‘Incubus’ Written
by: Douglas McCarthy, Francis Ford Coppola, Alan Wilder. From the album Unsounds
Methods by Recoil.
‘Want’ Written
by: Nicole Blackman and Alan Wilder. From the album Liquid by Recoil.
‘Prey’ Written
by: Joe Richardson and Alan Wilder. From the album subHuman by Recoil.
‘The Killing
Ground (Solid State Mix)’ Written by: Joe Richardson and Alan Wilder. From the
album subHuman by Recoil.
‘Vertigen
(Instrumental)’ Written by: Alan Wilder. From the album Liquid (Instrumental
Mix) by Recoil.
‘Faith
Healer’ Written by: Hugh McKenna and Alex Harvey. From the album Blooodline by
Recoil.
‘5000 Years
(A Romanian Elegy for Strings)’ Written by: Joe Richardson and Alan Wilder.
From the album subHuman by Recoil.
‘Jezebel’ Written
by: Orlandus Wilson, Alan Wilder and Traditional. From the album Liquid by
Recoil.
‘Strange Hours ‘10’’ (feat. The Black Ships) Written by: Diamanda Galás and Alan Wilder. From the album Selected by Recoil.
‘Backslider’
Written by: Buddy Forsythe, Joe Richardson, Alan Wilder. From the album subHuman
by Recoil.
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