#Mark Harrison

[misscromwellsmonocle]

The Night Owl (2023) by Mark Harrison

[jca-archive]

Mark Harrison, ca. 1980s

[retroscifiart]

Art by Mark Harrison of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant from Realms of Fantasy by Malcolm Edwards and Robert Holdstock (1983).

[thefailurecult]

[sandmandaddy69]

Mark Harrison

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Mark Harrison

[gameraboy2]

The Last Sword of Power, paperback cover by Mark Harrison, 1989

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Minas Morgul by Mark Harrison

[art-of-mtg]

Isochron Scepter (Mirrodin) - Mark Harrison

More cards with art by Mark Harrison on Scryfall

[spacenoirdetective]

Mark Harrison, 2000 AD art of Uriel ascending to Heaven

[ginge1962]

2000AD Prog 2401 - 25 September 2024, cover by Mark Harrison.

[downthetubes]

Rebellion Releases: 2000AD Prog 2410, Battle-Action #4 and 2000AD Annual 2025 in stores this week

An incredible cover from Mark Harrison leaps out at thrill seekers for 2000AD Prog 2410 this week – and there’s adventure aplenty, too, in the latest Battle-Action, too!

An incredible cover from Mark Harrison leaps out at thrill seekers for 2000AD Prog 2410 this week – and there’s adventure aplenty, too, in the latest Battle-Action, too! Plus, don’t miss out on the 2000AD Annual 2025 – marking the return of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic’s return to delivering a festive treat, just like Tharg used to! In 2000AD, “The Out” continues forwards, ever forwards,…

[triste-guillotine]

SUMMONING "Minas Morgul" CD 1995

1. Soul Wandering 2. Lugburz 3. The Passing of the Grey Company 4. Morthond 5. Marching Homewards 6. Orthanc 7. Ungolianth 8. Dagor Bragollach 9. Through the Forest of Dol Guldur 10. The Legend of the Master-Ring 11. Dor Daedeloth

"Here beside me,under endless howling winds My dying race is wandering homewards, Led by an old man to shores that don't exist, Just emptiness remains...

On and on goes our march gruesome as the light of sun, cold as winds that hide in me

Hour after hour, day after day my lullaby is turning and falls gently on this sleeping land like a hawk trembling of hunger and like a burning source...

Two years have passed and still my race is wandering through foreign shores... Homewards....

My soul is now formed as a knife forwards the heart of your heaven. And so I die...

Still my folk keeps on marching... Homewards..."

The front illustration of the album was taken from Mark Harrison's cover painting for Roger Taylor's "The Call of the Sword" (1988) novel.

[thefailurecult]

[sandmandaddy69]

Mark Harrison

[plungermusic]

Clowns to the left of me, jesters to the right here I am …

… stuck in the Middle Ages with you. Well not exactly, but after listening to Mark Harrison’s new release Plunger think the image of the licensed fool or court clown is an apposite one for Mark, no more so than in this album.

As with the jesters of old, Mark casts a perceptive and often acerbic eye over the foibles and failings of his age, his sharp points disguised with a mischievous grin and merrie caper (musically speaking that is, Plunger can’t picture him ever indulging in anything so infra dig. physically!)

From the local to the global, the micro to the macro, various issues go under the Harrison knife on Fools & Clowns: whether the eternal perils of poor judgement, the failure to recognise the value of little victories, and the strangely targeted curse of late night roadworks, or the more modern day blights of grifters and conmen,  incompetent but arrogant management and the pointless, valueless, endless onslaught of ‘soshul meeja’, all neatly skewered with the pith and wit for which Mark is renowned, in vignettes drawn both from personal experience and history (and I mean, come on, how many other songs that reference cholera, typhus, and dysentery in the lyrics?)

So far, so (possibly) serious… the grin-and-caper comes in the sprightly, upbeat accompaniment: based almost always around Mark’s trademark dextrous musical box (largely 12-string) picking, backed with the light touch but deft bass and drums of Charles Benfield and Ben Welburn. In what must be his most lush album to date, a great deal of attention has been paid to the arrangements and orchestration, including lead guitar and keyboard contributions from guest Guy Bennett: neat touches like the work-song hammer-effect drum-and-cymbal on Road Ahead Closed; the zithery harmonics on Fancy Hotel; some rather Ode To Billie Joe low (synth?) string underpinning on The Great Stink; and the hand-clap percussion and whole band unison sing-a-long on the anthem to Z-list pub rock hero Ricky. Hypnotic bass and picking, shimmering slide textures reverbed up for a Big Sky atmosphere, a descending ‘peal’ hook, and second and third electric guitar lines in the left and right tracks harmonising/counterpointing off each other make Small Deals a particular aural favourite.

Although Plunger may have initially raised an eyebrow at the press release citing The Band and Little Feat, the ride-cymbal-rich lope of House Rent Party does evoke a Bandish vibe, similarly the organ-and-slide-led Road Ahead Closed. Extensive use is made too of harmony backing vocals, conveying hints of Beach Boyesque California sunshine to the unsunny subjects of Them And Us and The Wild West; and, combined with unexpected rhythm and chordal progressions on More Fool Me, lend an almost backwoods Doobie Brothers feel!

Fools & Clowns is a worthy addition the oeuvre of an artist who often seems to fly under the radar of the great and good of the blues, and indeed folk, scenes (certainly when it comes to handing out plaudits) but who is as echt a chronicler of contemporary mores as any of the rightly-lauded greats:were of theirs. Share-cropping and the Great Migration may have gone but Mark nails the poverty (economic, moral or spiritual) of our own times with a zeitgeisty zing, all while still putting a smile on your face and a spring in your step!

Fools & Clowns is out on Friday 30th August: Presave on Spotify, order physical copies or watch the exclusive video for the new single Them And Us here: https://www.markharrisonrootsmusic.com/index.php