Tag Archives: LIFEFILES

Maps – Sparks In The Snow (Short Story, 2024)

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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

Maps – Lack Of Sleep (Short Story, 2023)

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To coincide with the release of Counter Melodies by Maps earlier this year. I wrote a short story inspired by the track ‘Lack Of Sleep’. You can read this here.

This is the third short story I’ve written inspired by Maps tracks, following ‘Sophia’ (2019) and ‘A.M.A.’ (2013).

‘Lack Of Sleep’ refers to a storm which adds to the insomnia that the narrator experiences. This was Storm Eunice. In parallel to writing the story, I made some field recordings of the storm, initially from the top floor of our house and then as I repaired the damage to our shed in its aftermath.

These recordings, along with several others, were then used as the basis for The Naming Of Storms by Audio Obscura (Neil Stringfellow).

This is the 11th release in the LIFEFILES series, part of the Mortality Tables collaborative project that I began in 2019. The LIFEFILES series has also included four pieces from Mute artist Simon Fisher Turner.

The Naming Of Storms by Audio Obscura was released September 15 2023. Listen, download and follow Mortality Tables at mortality-tables.com

(c) 2023 Documentary Evidence