The topographical ramble, the derive, the drift, the sarha (Arab/Palestinian expression meaning to roam without restraint where the spirit takes you – see the brilliant Palestinian Walks) – has gone beat with Mike Skinner’s latest release The Escapist. The video sees Mike heading off in a reverie on a 770 mile fugue from Dover to Cannes like an electro Ivor Gurney – although Gurney merely walked from High Wycombe to Gloucester in just over a day – a paltry 76 miles that produced a piano prelude in D-Flat minor.
Could Skinner’s muso-psychogeograhical detour have been inspired by Krautrocking Archdrud Julian Cope who traversed the unlikely path from pop to being an expert on neolithic monuments and godhead of neo-paganism.
Or am I making that connection because they both appeared the current Observer Music Monthly