The Foghorn's Lament

A truly unusual and strangely revealing lens through which to view music and history and the dark life of the sea – BRIAN ENONow that so many things can be - and are - recorded, I had forgotten that sound could also become extinct. The massive melancholic sound of the foghorn - the sound of safety and loss - is one of these and this colorful and detailed requiem tells the many interlocking stories of people who love it and try to preserve it. This has become one of my favorite books – LAURIE ANDERSONThe Foghorn’s Lament is as memorable, pleasurable and irrational as all the highest quests. It’s a deep, landscape defying blast of love and enthusiasm for place, emotion and the very human mystery that connects them both – JOHN HIGGSA wonderful way to get up close and very personal with the foghorn - a perfect example of the power and beauty of industrial music – COSEY FANNI TUTTIFew people now can remember the sound of the old booming foghorns that have been mostly replaced by what Jennifer Lucy Allan calls mewing beeps, but this very affecting book can truly conjure those long-gone sounds of foggy seascapes, and the romance of the giant trumpets that are now just rusting relics of a time gone by. Her heartfelt descriptions of that lonely bellow, along with the history and the human stories, has had me listening to all the music in the air of the outside world, more than I ever have done before – VASHTI BUNYANIn writing that is both lyrical and precise Jennifer Lucy Allan maps the mysterious space where legend, technology, maritime history and pop culture meet. A book as layered and rich as that lonely sound – STUART MACONIEYou can taste the sea salt reading this – JEREMY DELLEROriginal and absorbing… this kind of obsession is transporting, there is escape to be found in getting lost in a subject. The book is a lament for a disappearing way of life - numbers of former lighthouse keepers diminish each year - but also an appeal to listen deeply. It shows how there can be “a whole world to discover in just one sound” – AMY LIPTROT * Guardian *Alluring, haunting… [The Foghorn’s Lament] examines the music, history and the dark life of the sea through the foghorn, a nostalgic link to our industrial past. * The Sunday Post *It all coalesces to form a wonderfully original maritime journey that’s both a contemplation on Britain’s wildest coastal reaches and a reminder of how deeply sound and imagination shape our sense of place. * GEOGRAPHICAL *A fabulous book about a unique sound, and a valuable addition to the literature that seeks to explain the function and meaning of sound in all our lives. * Caught By the River, Book of the Month *

Jennifer Lucy Allan is an author, journalist and broadcaster with a PhD in foghorns. Her first book, The Foghorn’s Lament, was published in May 2021. She is a presenter on BBC Radio 3’s long running music show, Late Junction, and presented Life, Death and the Foghorn, and Oh Yoko! for BBC Radio 4. As a journalist she has written on underground and experimental music for over 15 years, and also co-ran the record labels Arc Light Editions and Good Energy.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.