Harmonies of Reconnection: Music, Mentorship, and Aeolian Magic
35-year reunion sparks musical collaboration for Send More Light
Aeolian Magic
My new music release this Friday really started in 1988 when I was 13 years old. The Aeolian mix of Send More Light is the result of a conversation across time with an extraordinary artist, musical instrument maker and mentor to my younger self.
Summer holidays in the 80’s for me meant leaving my mum’s home in Spain and going back to England to stay with friends and family. I would go in search of records and collect as many as I could to take back to Spain. There weren’t any record shops where we lived at that time. Second hand record shops in the UK were treasure troves to me.
In the summer of 1988, hunting around in a shop in Notting Hill, I found an independently produced record with the most unique and mysterious cover artwork.
I opened the double gatefold sleeve and became even more intrigued as I lay my eyes on a photograph of Glastonbury Tor, with what looked like a sort of harp or zither in front of St Michael’s Tower. Glastonbury was a huge trigger for me. I had recently completed writing a 60-page poem called Avalon and was building up to making my first pilgrimage to Glastonbury by my 14th birthday. It looked like whatever was on this record, had in part, been recorded in Glastonbury at the very site I was dreaming of visiting. I closed the cover to read the extraordinary name of the record again.
‘Nature’s Dream Harp’ by Robert Archer:
Aeolian Music Played By The Summer Wind on Devaharp 1.’
It was the closest proof that magic exists that I could hope for. This vinyl record proclaimed the music on it had been played by the wind. Not by a human. I ended up sitting in that record shop for about two hours, reading the literature inside the cover and even listening to some of it on headphones (thanks to a very kind shop keeper). During those hours, and for the rest of the summer, I was fixated on Aeolus – ‘god of the winds’, and the history of Aeolian harps; an ancient Greek instrument built, strung and tuned by human hand, but played by nature. Today, the idea reminds me a bit of Andy Warhol who owned a gold telephone that apparently could contact God.
The artist/ musical facilitator of Nature’s Dream Harp, Robert Archer, had made a ‘speaker’ for the voice of mother earth. Powered by Aeolus, god of the winds.
I’ve not written of it before, but Aeolus has crept into my work over the years, even this year on the track Stephen Fry performed on my new album ‘Super Connected’ - a track that initially got the album banned by Apple earlier this year.
The god of the winds seemed to have smuggled himself into the storm of controversy that blew up around the album on my birthday this July. Or maybe he caused it?
Aeolus was the divine keeper of the winds and king of the mythical, floating island of Aeolia. He kept the violent Storm-Winds locked safely away releasing them only at the command of the gods to wreak devastation upon the world.
I’m not sure how many of the illustrious folk who signed my open letter to Apple knew they’d not only helped to change Apple’s mind about my album, but also given Aeolus some serious airtime! My research into the disconnect between humans and nature in context of technology, had, like the video below, been blown into all proportion by Aeolus, which made me return to Nature’s Dream Harp this Summer.
The Power of Letter Writing
At 13, I had already been initiated into the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and was up to my neck reading Jung, Gurdjieff and Grail Lore whenever I could. I was also fascinated in all things pertaining to what the druids called ‘mother earth’. The late 80’s had me entranced into a new age, eco-friendly belief in magic, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon and ‘Martha’s Harbour’ by All About Eve which came out not long after my 13th birthday that summer.
Back in Spain, with Julianne Regan’s ethereal voice on repeat, incense burning and strict instructions to my mother not to interrupt me, I began to write a letter to the creator of the Aeolian harp album; Robert Archer.
The artists on my other albums (The Beatles, Queen, Kate Bush, etc) all seemed to have an address for a ‘record company’ on the back of the cover. The same address as I recall. I loved writing letters, but I knew I would never be able to write one to any of them like I had written to the Druids or Jonathan Porritt at Friends of The Earth.
But Robert Archer had put his UK address inside his album for anyone who was interested in Aeolian harps! I immediately felt a connection and thought, if he liked to listen to music that comes from nature, maybe he might like to listen to me? Because I believe there is music in nature too! At 13, everything was all about connecting patterns in my head. Patterns consumed me. Maybe I could write a letter to him?
I did write a letter, enquiring as to how I might be able to make my own Aeolian harp. I was completely obsessed with the instrument, and the idea that we humans could collaborate with nature to create music. And that it was all connected to our dreams. My mum chuckled when we went to the Spanish post office. I remember her looking at me with confusion, amazement and pride all at the same time. And then she prepared me for not receiving a reply, not wanting to get my hopes up, ever the realist.
But this time, reality became the dream and Robert Archer wrote back to me.
I had found my first pen pal! We exchanged ideas about Aeolus, paganism, mother earth and the power of nature. Robert also taught me, with his meticulous designs, how to make my own Aeolian harp. He sent precise instructions which I followed, as I began building my own instrument.
We wrote to each other less than half a dozen times, but it was one of the most important connections in my life. He alerted me to a particular part of music itself. A part I wouldn’t find in the music industry that I would enter a few years later. But a part that would serve me well throughout my life’s journey. A universal understanding of music and how it transcends our day to day consensus reality.
We spoke briefly on the telephone the following year. I had moved back to England after passing the entry for a Rudolf Steiner School, just outside London. Within six months, I had discovered Jimi Hendrix, The Pixies, Greek Mythology and Projective Geometry. I was deep into the culture I had been dreaming of, and along the way, I lost contact with Robert. But I kept listening to the album, especially when I wanted to meditate or relax. It calmed my overloaded mind then, as it still does today.
Reigniting A Super Connection
When the internet came along, I tried to find Robert, but didn’t have any luck. I tried and tried again but to no avail. Until this year.
I wondered if the artist who created the cover art of the album might be on the web. I managed to track him down and not long after finding him, I was on the phone to him! After explaining my long and peculiar story, he very kindly put me in touch with Robert, and what followed was a kind of magic I can’t explain.
Robert and I have been corresponding again, for the first time in 35 years. And wouldn’t you just know it, we picked up from where we left off. Talking all things Aeolian, esoteric, the sacred feminine, mother earth and our inner journeys. It has been a deep joy I could not have predicted.
He even sent me some more Aeolian recordings that I didn’t know about. Recordings he had made on a second harp he had made called ‘Devaharp 2’.
A few weeks ago, late at night in my home studio, I began playing piano to Robert’s Aeolian recording of Devaharp 2 . Something about it resonated with me that made me want to join in with the remarkable harmonics. I found that the music I’d written for ‘Send More Light’ interplayed with Devaharp 2 beautifully.
I can’t even describe what this recent journey has felt like for me. I feel I’m jamming with both Robert, Aeolus and my 13-year-old self as well. I explained to Robert that I was releasing different versions of my song as a ritual prayer for more light in the world, and that I’d also be donating half of all proceeds of the song to the Peace Pledge Union. He was immediately supportive of me releasing this version of the song which is made between us, with Aeolus and nature, at the heart of it.
I’ve actually made a record with Robert Archer. You can hear it here.
Those of you who have read Walking Through Walls will know that creating music with nature is a running theme for me and one that has definitely pursued me!
If you’re like me, and need to switch your brain off in the middle of the day with a bit of music to unclutter the mind, this Aeolian mix of Send More Light works a treat.
Finding Robert when I was a child was as magical as finding a Merlin-like wizard, and finding him again this year has been even more magical. Nature’s Dream Harp came from an actual dream which led to Robert creating that album. With Kate Alderton’s dream of light activating our ‘Send More Light’ ritual, it feels that sound, nature and dream-life have aligned across the timelines. And for me, one of the most significant connections of my life has sparked back to life. Robert and I have still not seen each other in real life. We connect through each other’s words, each other’s voices and each other’s experiments with sound. And we’ve enjoyed hearing what it sounds like when nature speaks to us. We hope you do to. Tim X
Listen to Tim Arnold and Robert Archer’s Aeolian Mix of ‘Send More Light’. Every play of the song sends a donation to The Peace Pledge Union.
.Listen to the seminal 1979 Aeolian album ‘Nature’s Dream Harp’ here.