Caught by the River
@caughtbytheriver
Wading around at the confluence of arts / nature / culture since 2007 Regular posts at caughtbytheriver.net 🐟 Irregular printed matter, record releases & events via rivertones.bandcamp.com and our Friday newsletter
Soon to be published by @anotherplacemag.bsky.social, Carl Bigmore's photo-and-music project 'Like a Snow Hill in the Air' is about whales — 'or more the stories we tell ourselves about whales' www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/like...
#NowPlaying: ‘Down To The River’ by Peter Rogers and @lauracannellmusic.bsky.social. Taken from the collaborative album 'The Given World', inspired by Melissa Harrison’s recent novel of the same name www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/pete...
Since we’re now (somehow) past the year’s half-way point, we thought we’d recap our first 6 Books of the Month of 2026. Need to buy a fellow nature-lover a birthday gift? Wondering what to read on the beach in the next couple of weeks? Look no further! www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/book...
New in the Shop: 'Lichen: A Beginner’s Guide to the Lichens of the World' by Rob Hodgson (£7). This handy A6 guide is printed on nice recycled paper in the UK and fits perfectly in your pocket for your next lichen hunt: rivertones.bandcamp.com/merch/lichen...
Written by the legendary A&R man for acts incl Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, K.D. Lang, Wilco, Nick Lowe & Queen Latifah, Joe McEwen's 'Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars’ gives us 230 pages of reasons to remember why we love music, finds Jeb Loy Nichols www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/tast...
'He thought rock’n’roll was for idiots [...] & he thought it might be better if I turned at least some of my attention to Art Pepper and Johnny Griffin. He was probably right.' James Oldham pays his respects Brian Case www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/caug... Photo: @briandavidstevens.bsky.social
Recently published by TNC Books, @badwool9.bsky.social’s ‘Boomerang Process’ is full of the extraordinariness and unpredictability of human existence, writes @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/boom...
#NowPlaying: ‘Rock Island Line’ by Jake Xerxes Fussell www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/now-... Taken from the album The Old Beloved Path, upcoming on Fat Possum Records.
What does The Animals of Farthing Wood’s displacement tale look like in the age of AI? Abi Andrews considers animal sentience, the data centre deluge, and the new “pay-to-destroy” approach to planning www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/data...
Re-Wilding and Re-Childing Time: Contributing editor Tallulah Brennan talks to @rebeccatamas.bsky.social about wild time, children as animists, what kinds of seasons we deserve, and England as Stonehenge www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/re-w... Author photo: Robin Silas Christian
As environmental crisis looms large — temperature ever increasing, rivers running drier, data centres getting thirstier and billionaires getting richer — help us keep publishing stories of community, resistance and hope, and gathering around them together: www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/seek...
Beowulf “Wulfie” Mayfield's 'A Little Film About Little Libraries' follows reluctantly retired musician Billy Jenkins on a bike trip around the borough of Lewisham, SE London, to enjoy, tidy up and generally support an informal network of micro libraries www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/a-li...
'Queer ecology in a garden is about the untamed and unpruned.' Read an extract from @jennychambles.bsky.social’s ‘Q is for Garden’ (@manchesterup.bsky.social) — our July Book of the Month, which explores how queerness & nature entwine 🌿 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/jenn...
#NowPlaying: ‘Move Your Body (Greater Horseshoe Bat)’ by Hanna Tuulikki & @surfacepressure.bsky.social 🦇 Taken from the collaborative album 'Echo in the Dark' — composed entirely from bat echolocation calls fused with the human voice — forthcoming on KIN-TU www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/hann...
Contributing editor Tallulah Brennan heads to North London’s OmVed Gardens to take in Hannah Fletcher’s ‘Photo.Petro.Chemical.Capital’, exploring the entwined rise of photography and the petrochemical industry www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/omve...
'It was orchid season in the acid grassland of home / and we’d been given departure times too.' High Speed 1: a poem by Will Burns @troubledstriker.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/high...
alive, alive oh: Today on the site, audiovisual artist Claire Todd introduces her new film piece about standing deadwood www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/aliv...
Photographic artist @williamarnold.bsky.social is embarking on a mission to SAVE PUBLIC TELEPHONY by making a 1700-mile round-trip from Cornwall to place 52 calls from a kiosk on the Isle of Lewis — and he’s started a crowdfunder to help him on his way www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/savi...
Safe Harbours: In June’s BOTM author interview, 'Rough Edges' author Natasha Carthew speaks to CBTR’s Tallulah Brennan about the precarity of coastal living, the importance of working-class voices in the nature writing canon, & the ocean as a parental figure www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/nata...
'This is a project to directly combat the hate we see in the media and in politics.' We’re thrilled to be working with artists Rosa Amora & Riley Summer on their project ‘ROOTED’, celebrating migration in the UK through storytelling, printmaking & community www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/root...
#NowPlaying: ‘The 47 Whale Raga’ by Jim Nollman. A welcome escape into the cool, deep waters under British Columbia. Taken from the album 'Orcas’ Greatest Hits', out on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in August 🐋 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/now-... Beautiful stuff.
Field recording & nature sound luminary Chris Watson is auctioning off some of his sound recording accessory equipment — including a Billingham bag previously used to transport Sir David Attenborough’s personal kit — in benefit of The Philip Jeck Foundation www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/chri...
Capturing the physical and psychic states beyond, between and beneath human perception, M. John Harrison’s ‘The End of Everything’ (@serpents-tail.bsky.social) is a kind of ‘anti-state of the nation novel’, writes @troubledstriker.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/the-...
'Out of Whack', an exhibition of Frank Watson's photographs of the Thames Estuary and Kent coast, opens at Joseph Wales Studios, Margate on 3rd July www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/out-...
Natasha Carthew’s ‘Rough Edges’ (@sceptrebooks.bsky.social) is June BOTM. An antidote to dominant, romanticised nature writing narratives, it keeps the genre’s humanity intact, writes CBTR contributing editor Tallulah Brennan www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/roug...
New in the shop: Streatham Common to the Tooting Commons: A South London Landscape History. The fourth in the series of landscape historian John Gray's bestselling 'Commonplace' zines, detailing how the commons provide the key to the South London landscape rivertones.bandcamp.com/merch/streat...
Opening this weekend at Kestle Barton, 'Birded and Eyed' brings together new works by Sarah Gillespie — developed through sustained observation of the woods, meadows and night-life around both Kestle Barton and the artist’s home in Devon www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/bird...
#NowPlaying: ‘Growing Roots’ by Modern Biology & Zekarias Musele Thompson. Taken from the forthcoming 'Plants Can Dance', curated by Brian d’Souza (Auntie Flo), bringing together a global community of artists to explore the possibilities of biosonification www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/now-...
'I'm hoping they might reach the ears of people who are less able to explore the outside world as I am privileged to do.' If a Tree Falls: Rick Blything introduces the field recording project which sees him uploading a wealth of nature sounds to YouTube www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/if-a...
'Your name is nowhere here, / yet the nettles flinch as if brushed. / Sap runs bitter-sweet in the cut ash, / ambering the air.' Persistence of Ache / The Thaw Begins: a poem by Ruby Butler www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/pers...