‘Music goes to the long-ago brain’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Wolf Pascoe

Before words. Before thought or language. My guest this week spends his professional life challenged by the reflexes and intricacies of the long-ago brain. By day he is an anaesthetist; an inducer of sleep and guardian of the unconscious. Sometimes that’s more eventful than you’d think. By night he is a poet and a playwright. His latest book fuses night and day in a memoir of his profession. He is Wolf Pascoe and he’s sharing his Undercover Soundtrack at the Red Blog.

‘Music dark and soulful; rural and tough’ – Dave Malone, The Undercover Soundtrack

My guest this week is best known for his poetry collections, but has had a weakness for crime fiction ever since he was a 10-year-old, smuggling a radio to bed to catch Mystery Theater. Music – and a few fingers of bourbon – were his close companions when writing his first novelet Not Forgiven, Not Forgotten. The Hank Dogs made the main character a dark angel in a corrupt town. Billie Holiday stopped the romance getting too sweet. He is Dave Malone and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.