Insula Sacra, vulgo Holy Iland et Farne

A sonic landscape based on the holy North Sea islands of Lindisfarne and the Farne Archipelago, which were the home of Saint Cuthbert and the seat of English Christianity before the Viking invasion. The title of the piece comes from a large and decorative map of Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands, from the 1645 German edition of the Blaeu Atlas Novus. Calves slaughtered, vellum prepared, oak apples picked - without the wasp the word of god would remain unwritten. A shooting star cuts the sky in two; an angel transports a soul to heaven. This world is the work of the devil and woman is his willing tool; the hermit prefers the company of the donkey and the eider duck to that of the weaker sex, and in the life and death his body is un-corrupted. Carry him now, cart his coffin around the country, establish his church at every station along the wandering route, and leave behind a trail of tall tales, invented legends, stories of piety and saintly intervention. Scribe, sharpen your quill, scratch your mark upon the page and record the works of a sky-god’s son that lived in a hot and distant land. The wind is whipping over the dunes, and the tide is turning. Porpoise and seals sing their songs to the sea. In the beginning was the word. So be it. The end is Amen