It’s been a while, but I’ve written another short story inspired by the music and songwriting of Maps (James Chapman). As I’ve said before, there’s something indefinable in the emotional dynamics of James’s music that really inspires me to write short fiction. This time the track is ‘Sparks In The Snow’, the B-side of his second single ‘Lost My Soul’.

This is the fourth of these I’ve written, and when completed, the collection will be published as A Small Book Of Maps through my Mortality Tables collaborative project.

It is bundled with a collaboration with Maps that kicked off the Mortality Tables releases for 2024, ‘LF15 / A 4’33” Walk To Woburn Sands Station’. This formed part of Season 02 of the LIFEFILES series, where artists respond to my extremely basic lo-fi field recordings. In this case it was the sounds of the walk from my house to my local station, a walk that coincidentally takes 4’33”. I spoke to James about his versions of the John Cage piece for my other Mute blog, stumm433.com. You can read that interview here.

‘Sparks In The Snow’ is available through the Mortality Tables Bandcamp site here.

(c) 2024 Mat Smith / Mortality Tables