Agatewards by gribbles

[Read in full on NHAM]

Agatewards by gribbles

Here at NHAM HQ we’ve been very fortunate to have been given advance listening of the upcoming new release by gribbles (ahead of our exclusive first play of the album on TIBtv at 8pm on Friday 4th September).

To be released on boutique, Lincoln-based label Yellowbelly Records, it’s called Agatewards, an old northern word used in Lincolnshire meaning ‘to walk a while with someone on the way home’.

An appropriate title gribbles suggests, for the album walks a little way with Alfred Tennyson and characters from his Lincolnshire dialect poems, before spending a bit of time together travelling through music that was inspired by them.

It was while crate digging at a record fair in Chesterfield that gribbles discovered Mr Edward Campion and Mrs Edith Burgess (both leading authorities on the Lincolnshire dialect in their time) reciting some of Tennyson’s Lincolnshire dialect poetry in the late 1960s and early 1970s. gribbles, himself a Lincoln lad and keen electronic musician, couldn’t resist the opportunity to get his sampler out…

The album begins with some familiar “na’then”s and “ow yer meggerin’?”s, given a Yellowbelly remix.

From then on we’re fully in gribbles’ fair hands. Tennyson’s dialect, rebooted some 50-60 years ago, are boosted once more, in to the modern day via the compelling beats, beeps, sweeps, textures and transitions that are so wonderfully in character with the evocative vibe we’ve come to know from this Lincs layer-maker.

A few of the tracks may be familiar already to gribbles afficionados or those who watch TIBtv (Three Knocks), but with twelve tracks in total there’s a lot of fresh material on here.

It’s a joyful piece. A celebration that should itself be celebrated. A thoroughly enjoyed perambulation with Campion, Burgess, Tennyson and Thorpe through Lincolnshire past and present. It’s fair to say this album is a spot more than fair to middlin’!

The very first play of this album anywhere in the public sphere will be at the NHAM Release Party on @TIBtv at 8pm on Friday 4th September so do come and join us in the live chat to hear the album in full among friends.

In the meantime check out gribbles’ extensive back catalogue on @mirlo and follow him in The Fediverse: @gribbles.

[Read in full on NHAM]