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Lucy Over Lancashire
artist Paul Rooney
year 2006
language(s) English
location  BRITAIN, Lancashire
region 1 North (North)
index no. 05.1.06
media CD
about the media The CD collects tracks of a single voice monologue (Lucy), above and amidst music, speaking about Lancashire.
 
The red record
The cover
 
about the project The record comprises a single voice monologue of a girl named Lucy. In the several tracks her voice endlessly repeats stories about Lancashire; stories she had been told by the evil figure of another voice named Alan. She sometimes speaks in Lancashire dialect. The background of the repeating stories is music influenced by reggae and Lancastrian post-punk.
 
Lucy looses her cheerfulness at the end of her monologue, and admits that the stories she is telling, all originally told to her by Alan, are unreliable, and that the idea of ‘evil’ itself is also erroneous. The potential for barbarity is within all of us, Lucy realises.
 
Among the stories Lucy tells there is a twisted tale about the pivotal role that the English county of Lancashire has in the plans of Satan, ranging from the Pendle witches and the 'dark Satanic mills' of the Industrial Revolution, up to the bile of the Red Rose Radio phone in shows of Allan Beswick (who also appears on the record).
 
Other Lancashire linked characters mentioned by Lucy, with names changed or slightly distorted, include Lee Scratch Perry, Marx and Engels, Mick Hucknall of Simply Red and The Fall (and the debt that the band owes to Lancashire folklore). Also the Radio Lancashire ‘On the Wire’ programme itself is referred to, especially in its commitment to reggae music (influences you can hear in the project). It was on this programme the piece was first broadcast on 18th November 2006.
 
in project language Paul Rooney is a Liverpool-based artist. Since 2000 he has been making art works for galleries and other places, and has shown his work at Tate Britain and at the Shanghai Biennial. 'Lucy Over Lancashire’ is a limited edition artwork for broadcast over Lancashire radio. Later on it was released on red vinyl and cd.
 
organisations SueMi Records Berlin
 
 
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