Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast was used as a military test site during both world wars and into the nuclear age, before the Ministry of Defence sold it to the National Trust in 1993. It has been left to nature and is home to an abundance of wildlife, including nesting and wading birds, hares, Chinese water deer and precious vegetated shingle. All of this is subject to the shifts brought by climate and coastal change.
Author Robert Macfarlane’s 2019 book Ness, illustrated by Radiohead artist Stanley Donwood, is set in and inspired by the landscape and history of Orford Ness. Singer-songwriter Hayden Thorpe, best known as the frontman of indie pop band Wild Beasts, was inspired by Macfarlane’s book and was moved to make an album, also called Ness, that is due to be released on September 27. Macfarlane and Thorpe will both perform at Orford Ness in a series of gigs called Ness Speaks: Words And Music on Saturday September 28 and Sunday September 29.
The event will feature an intimate, acoustic performance by Thorpe, joined by the cross-genre musical ensemble Propellor. There will also be a question-and-answer session and reading from Macfarlane. The author said: “Orford Ness has long been a place of transformation and mutation, so it makes perfect and exciting sense to me to see my own words about the site taken up and transfigured into music by Hayden Thorpe.
“Working with Jack McNeill and Kerry Andrew, he has created something deeply strange and wildly original: a nu.