Caught by the River

Now Playing

‘Growing Roots’ by Modern Biology & Zekarias Musele Thompson. Plants Can Dance by A State Of Flo Taken from the forthcoming compilation Plants Can Dance. Curated by Brian d’Souza (aka Auntie Flo), Plants Can Dance brings together a global community of artists, exploring the creative possibilities of biosonification — transforming signals from plants, ecosystems and […]

If a Tree Falls

Rick Blything introduces the field recording project which sees him uploading a wealth of nature sounds to YouTube. I’ve been recording nature sounds since 2011 when I first got my hands on a Roland R-09 hand-held recorder and perched it in a tree at my mum’s house to capture the complex chatter of Starlings. Soon […]

Persistence of Ache / The Thaw Begins

A poem by Ruby Butler. Morning tightens its belt of mist. Something unhooks in me, a lark’s note caught low, where the body keeps its weather. I have known this ache before: not pain or hunger, but the iron-taste before rain when the ground remembers old heat. It tucks itself under the ribs, a curled […]

Raised on Radio

In the company of Paul Rees’ ‘Raised on Radio – Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola: The AOR Glory Years 1976-1986’, Travis Elborough dips into the history of Adult Orientated Rock — the sound of a confident, car-driving North America. As with books and movies, commercial success in pop music is no guarantee of critical credibility. Reviewers, […]

Save The Lammermuirs

The Lammermuirs are one of Scotland’s most treasured rural landscapes, known for their wildlife, open moorland, dark skies, hill farming, heritage and tranquillity. This morning, Benjamin Myers wrote to us with news of plans to build an industrial-scale data centre on them. Dear landscape-loving writers and friends, For 13 years I’ve been lucky enough to […]

Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Pleasures of… Spring

In addition to sending paid Steady subscribers monthly interviews with authors of our Books of the Month, once a quarter, we invite a different writer to share their most favourite and pleasurable moments of the season. This month, Kerri ní Dochartaigh delights in Spring’s cracking open. Read an excerpt from the piece below, and log in […]

Book of the Month: May

May’s Book of the Month is Melissa Harrison‘s ‘The Given World’ — a novel observing how the lives of people in the ancient Welm Valley intersect as the village undergoes an uneasy shift. Read an extract from the book below. The spring sun draws life from everything it touches, giving rise, among many in the […]

Now Playing

In advance of this weekend’s Caught by the River event at Elmley Nature Reserve, CBTR editor Diva and co-host Daisy gave over their latest Token Girl DJs Soho Radio show to 2 hours of music celebrating the event. Find herein tracks from the weekend’s lineup, including Andrew Wasylyk, Modern Nature, Kayla Painter, Music to Watch […]

Final Timings & Travel Information: CBTR Weekend at Elmley Nature Reserve

Our event at Elmley Nature Reserve is just around the corner, kicking off tomorrow. Although on-site accommodation has sold out, there are a few day and weekend tickets still available, with affordable alternative places to stay accessible by car or taxi. Nearby Sittingbourne has a Travelodge, Premier Inn and Holiday Inn, with a number of […]

Up All Night

Newly published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Imogen Willetts’ ‘Up All Night: A History of Going Out’ is the story of the good times and the great ones. Emma Warren reviews. History shows us that going out goes in waves. For years it might be at high tide, with a wide array of activity taking place […]

Loyalty to The Given World: Melissa Harrison, interviewed

May’s Book of the Month is Melissa Harrison’s ‘The Given World’, newly published by Hutchinson Heinemann. In this month’s author interview, Melissa speaks to CBTR’s Tallulah Brennan about imagined rivers, our skewed relationship with the seasons, and the notable omission of farming from the nature writing canon. Find an extract from the interview below. Photo: […]

Post-Elmley photos and thank-yous

Thank you, from the bottom of our marshy hearts, to everyone who made last weekend at Elmley Nature Reserve one for the books. Thank you particularly to Grace Spooner, Emma Warren, Mathew Clayton, Rosa Amora, Riley Summer, Rob St John & Wil Troup, variously, for your cool heads, comradeship and organisational prowess. Thank you to […]

Tomorrow Might as Well be Today

A story extracted from Roy’s ‘Boomerang Process’. Barbara is doing that thing she does. She doesn’t overdo it. It’d lose its impact if she did. She’s not soft, Barbara. Knows when to lull people in and hit them where it hurts. “Y’know what’s her face from The Eldonians?” Pat has been reeled in. “Who do […]

Now Playing

‘Wild Geese Arrive’ by Hannah Peel & Beibei Wang. The Endless Dance by Hannah Peel Taken from the collaborative album The Endless Dance, out now on Real World Records.

Cartographies of Care

Opened yesterday at Southcombe Barn, Widecombe-in-the Moor, Dartmoor, Cartographies of Care is a group exhibition that asks — in the current contexts of warfare and rising sea levels crises — ‘how much longer will we have these lands to care for?’ Vivian Ross-Smith, Refinishing, 2025, still from performance film part of their ongoing dyke project […]

The Given World

Melissa Harrison’s latest novel ‘The Given World’ is May Book of the Month. Amy Liptrot reviews — finding in the book’s generous worldview, rich language and dreamlike qualities an ‘Under Milk Wood’ for the twenty-first century. ‘What use, after all, is the past?’ asks one of the characters in the wonderful, multiperspectival portrait of a […]

Peckerwood: Field notes from a feral’d garden

Spring surges, squirming and unstoppable, into Mark Mattock‘s “feral’d” NW2 garden. From Snow bush to May bush ‘God speaks in the least of creatures.’ – Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian The spectrogram at the top of my phone screen looks like a post of some giant artwork. A wild untamed Turner landscape in charcoal. It’s a visual rendition […]

Strangers on the Shore

In ‘Strangers on the Shore’, published yesterday by White Rabbit Books, Michael Smith stumbles through the uncanny psychic landscape of Hastings, exploring the experience of becoming a father and the disarming grief of leaving your youth and its dreams behind. Will Burns reviews, finding a steadfast commitment to the beauty of doubt and ambiguity in […]

Croft, Coast and Hill: Letters from the Northwest Highlands

From unfurling green tips to cuckoos and nightjars, Spring reasserts itself on Kirsteen Bell and Annie Worsley’s respective crofts. South Erradale, April 19th Dear Kirsteen, How are you all? We’ve had such a cold wet start to April – lots of fast-moving vicious squalls of hail and snow mixed with much calmer but very dreich […]

Mad Shepherds

With their celebration of ordinary people’s lives, Mackenzie Crook’s ‘Small Prophets’ and Little Toller’s recent reissue of L. P. Jacks’ ‘Mad Shepherds’ are a match made in heaven, writes Sue Brooks. I have been a fan of the independent publisher, Little Toller, since it was launched in 2008. Looking out for favourite authors in the […]

Now Playing

‘Here Are The Tulips’ by Hollow Hand. Wish Road South by Hollow Hand Taken from the upcoming album Wish Road South, out on Loose Music / Soundy in September.

Book of the Month: June

Newly published by Sceptre, ‘Rough Edges’, our June Book of the Month, sees Natasha Carthew explore the villages, towns and cities of our coast, meeting the people fighting to keep these places alive. Read an extract below. Growing up in coastal poverty, the routes available to me were rabbit-burrow narrow. Very often, they were barely […]

Deep Field

Newly published by Cornwall’s Ancient Magic Books, Deep Field presents a large collection of artist Tom Sewell’s photographs for the first time. Taken out on walks and mixed with images of daily life, the book reads as visual notebook to Tom’s main practice. It also includes several images of Tom’s sculptures and a beautiful foreword […]

Lines Made By Walking | Caught by the River | Caught by the River

Alex Chilton 1950 – 2010 R.I.P. | Caught by the River | Caught by the River

Caught By The Reaper – John Sicolo | Caught by the River | Caught by the River

Caught By The Reaper – John Sicolo | Caught by the River | Caught by the River

And so the season ends… | Caught by the River | Caught by the River

Caught by the Reaper – Mark Linkous, 1962 – 2010 | Caught by the River | Caught by the River

Country Bizarre Issue 8 | Caught by the River | Caught by the River