Writer and musician Mark Brend has compiled an End Times mixtape to pull listeners into the unsettling world of his debut novel Undercliff

The way Mark Brend describes his novel Undercliff in the liner notes below has us thinking about the abstracted in-the-past cold open of the third season of The Leftovers (waiting for an apocalypse that never comes). Listening to the mixtape itself makes us want to immerse ourselves in another place and spend time with characters that we do not know yet. It’s a heady experience even without the framing narrative of Undercliff; just imagine what could occur if you combine the songs with the book.

Liner notes by Mark Brend:

The late 60s counter-cultural enthusiasm for spiritual exploration
encompassed a sideways glance at Christianity, which led to the Jesus
People movement. This originated on the US west coast, and by the early 70s had spread to the UK. In reductionist terms, Jesus People were Christian hippies. They looked the part, went in for communal living and made their own music – much of which we might now describe as acid folk. While most Jesus People gatherings were actually quite orthodox, mainstream and benign, some most definitely weren’t. But to a casual observer they might all have looked much the same. That’s the background to my novel Undercliff. Though the characters in Undercliff probably listened to some of the music on this mixtape, it’s not a period soundtrack. Rather, it’s an attempt to evoke something of the spirit of those times and, I hope, the atmosphere of the book.

Mark writes for Electronic Sound magazine, has written non-fiction books including The Sound of Tomorrow which examines early commercial electronic music and has been making music for over thirty years with the Palace of Light, Mabel Joy, Ghostwriter and Fariña. The latter have recently been reactivated after a long break and are putting out incidental music for Mark’s novel this June.

Undercliff by Mark Brend is published by Hornet Books.

Concrete Islands
Latest posts by Concrete Islands (see all)