The press release says:

Overnight Low:

There’s a tale told in whispers of a traitor’s ghost doomed to make rope from the sand of an Atlantic beach. Every night his work is destroyed by a fire breathing black dog and the traitor must begin again. A morning’s hike from the traitor’s torment there is an old drover’s road lost in shadows of sentinel oaks. Then a bridge takes you over a fast running stream that catches the weak winter sun. Stop a while and watch the trout swimming against the flow. The path turns out into a small community where roots run deep but visitors are welcome. It is here that Douglas E Powell and the Rising Spirit have honed their craft.

Overnight Low is the Rising Spirit’s second album with Powell and the follow up to Good Men Get Lost At Sea (2015). The album was recorded over months of evening sessions at Saunton Road Studios. A fairly new venture in an unlikely location, the studio is thriving, even if the local pub is only just hanging on. Here the music, low conversation, tall stories and cherished folklore are as much a currency as the dull coins minted by a distant government. The interplay between Powell’s crafted words and Jason Pratt’s introspective melody creates the feeling of a session with old friends and absent friends remembered. This band of three have stepped back a little and made room for others to join them and warm themselves beside the fire.

Powell takes on folk themes and more personal preoccupations to inform his song writing. Stories are woven from the found threads of our fragmented culture and lyrics sparkle like lost jewels and discarded sweet wrappers high in a magpie’s nest.

Douglas E. Powell & The Rising Spirit

Douglas E. Powell is a UK based songwriter, lyricist and performer. A key figure on the South West UK music, he is a seasoned performer and a familiar face at summer festivals around the UK. Powell has also supported a variety of artists such as: Ben Ottewell from Gomez, Tom Hingley of the Inspiral Carpets and Peter Bruntnell. In collaboration with Keith Seatman and Belbury Poly the Broken Folk EP has been featured on 6 Music with plays from Gideon Coe and Stuart Maconie’s Freak Show.

Powell has two released albums as a solo artist: The Still and West and The Iron Coast. In 2015 Powell teamed up with the Rising Spirit to produce Good Men Get Lost At Sea. Overnight Low is their second album together.

Powell has a distinctive voice somewhere along the tradition of Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson and Bill Fay. His warmth and personal approach to song writing also bring to mind the work of classic artists from in the folk tradition from David Crosby to Billy Bragg. The Broken Folk project was released by Ghost Box is and altogether different spectre, recalling John Foxx or the electronic paths sometimes travelled by Robert Wyatt.

One of the most famous artists of all time was Leonardo Da Vinci. He accurately represented the human body, scenes from the bible and, portraits into paintings that include three-dimensional objects. Leonardo came from Italy and he was an architect, an inventor, a painter, and a sculptor.

Here are some of the most famous works of this great artist.

The Mona Lisa

This is a well-known painting depicting a portrait of a woman. It was believed that the painting is a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, which was the wife of a silk merchant in Florence. There are many speculations about the actual mysterious subject of the painting. The enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa was also a topic of debate for many decades. Da Vinci used a technique called sfumato or smoke to create the enigmatic smile. Currently, the Mona Lisa is located in the Louvre Museum in Paris. You can read more about this painting in this link here.

The Self Portrait

This shows a red chalk drawing of an old man with a wavy hair. Many scholars argue that this is what the famous artist looked like. Yet, there are some that said that the subject was older than Leonardo. Da Vinci died at the age of 67 and the sketch might just be one of the drawings that he made while he is studying the people around him. The portrait can also be Leonardo’s uncle or father who lived to be 80 years old. This is currently located in Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy.

The Last Supper

This famous painting depicted the moment Jesus gathered his 12 disciples for a Passover dinner. He announced that a disciple would ultimately betray him leading to his crucifixion. The painting depicted the varied body languages and facial expressions of his disciples around the table. This masterpiece was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza in 1495. The famous Leonardo Da Vinci artwork is currently located at Santa Maria Delle Grazie.

Virgin on the Rocks

The first version of the painting was commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. It shows a figure of Mary holding a child Jesus in a mysterious landscape. Saint John the Baptist looks at his savior for the first time and he kneels in prayer. Another version was painted by Da Vinci because of the dispute made by the painting’s commissioner. This painting, however, is located in the Louvre Museum.

Salvator Mundi

The original painting was sold for $450 million at Christie’s in 2017. This depicts a mysterious portrait of Jesus Christ the savior. You can view this painting on this site: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/salvator-mundi/LQE-cpUuDnDAig.  Although there are some people who don’t believe that the painting was actually finished by Da Vinci himself. For many years, the whereabouts of this painting was unknown until it was sold at a regional auction in the US. Many believed that the painting was a fake when it first came out. However, when the work was professionally restored, it was proven to be an authentic copy of the painting. It was purchased by private collectors.

Ginevra De Benci

This is a painting that is currently housed in Washington DC. The portrait was made and finished by Leonardo when he was still in his early 20s. He showed some of the painting methods that he used in his consecutive works of art later in his life. The unconventional methods of blending colors to create an almost perfectly smooth face were used in this painting. He depicted Ginevra’s portrait in a three-quarter profile that was not common with his contemporaries. He used the same tactic with his Mona Lisa and it was believed that he was the first artist to do it.

The Virgin and the Child with Saint Anne    

This painting depicts three figures: two women and an innocent child This painting also shows about three generations of the Holy Family: Starting from St. Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ when he was still a child. The Virgin Mary seems to restrain the child Jesus from mounting a lamb. This scene is a contrast to the Virgin of the Rocks. Everything in the picture is playful and loving.

You can get your own painting by Leonardo through prints. There are a lot of marketplaces today that can offer to display one of these paintings without you needing to spend your entire fortune or robbing the Louvre museum.

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Braunton’s Big Borrow this Saturday morning (5th July)!

It’s nearly the end of the library consultation that will see the future of libraries across Devon decided. Thanks to all the support for our campaign, we’ve had Braunton library reclassified as a larger Devon Centre – but its future is still far from certain.

We want to send Devon County Council one last message how much we love our library. We’re going to see how many books we can take out in one go and we want you to help us!

So we’re holding ‘Braunton’s Big Borrow’ at 10am this Saturday. Come and meet up outside the library to kick off the biggest morning of book borrowing that Braunton has ever seen. 

We want every member of Braunton library to max out their library card and scoop up an armful of books each. We’ll start with the very first shelf and see how many shelves we can empty. It’s your chance to show you love your library.

Not got a library card? Been meaning to get one? Now’s your chance. Register this week so you can take part on Saturday morning. 

Old, young, mums, dads, teenagers and children – Braunton’s Big Borrow is for all of us on Saturday morning to celebrate our library while we still can.