NORTON, KEMPER - Toll (CD)

Toll is a story of a collision between the lost Cornish kingdom of Lyonesse and the 1967 sinking of the Torrey Canyon oil tanker, both located in the same stretch of ocean off the west coast of Cornwall. The Torrey Canyon incident, where the ship was wrecked on the Seven Stones reef spilling 32 million gallons of crude oil, was one of the worst environmental disasters in the world at the time and featured disastrous government attempts to rescue the situation by, for instance, setting fire to the resultant oil slick. The results are still visible on many Cornish beaches. The drowned land of Lyonesse (or 'Lethowsow') features in the story of Tristran and Iseult and is further described in romantic terms in poems by Tennyson and Walter de la Mare. Bells from the lost churches of its capital can still supposedly be heard from beneath the Seven Stones reef. "Using such minimal instrumentation as a laptop, harmonium and Casio keyboard, together with various low budget recording equipment, Norton seems to have an extra sensory knack of creating something moving, eerie and somewhat chilling out of almost nothing." - The Wire