FULL STURGEON MOON (13 August 2011)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CAMERATA MEDIOLANENSE

CAMPO DI MARTE


Original Issue: 1996 Discordia (Disc 093 CD)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from Old Europa Café:

This album was released back in 1996 and is still one of the very best Neoclassic albums ever ! True European music!

The quality of Camerata in their music stile is unique and no other group was able to achieve such results …

Fanfare, Drums, super wonderful Vocals especially the female ones, Cembalo plus other classic instruments, simply majestic sounds and exquisite compositions !

EOSTRE (21 March 2011)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

TEATRO SATANICO

PAN IST TOD



Original Issue: 2007 Old Europa Cafe (OEMP 012) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

To learn more about Teatro Satanico

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from Old Europa Cafe :

Do you think you can foresee how will sound the new Teatro Satanico’s songs ?
Do you think Teatro Satanico plays only elektronic music ?
Do you think Teatro Satanico has not more trick-or-treat to play on you ?
Do you know that PETER PAN was a real soldier and that he is dead and buried ?
Do you know that his grave is located on a mountain in Veneto, the Italian region where Teatro Satanico’s guys live ?
Don’t you believe it? Well, look to the photo of his grave on the cover of the new Teatro Satanico PAN IST TOD album !
Hardly to expect it, but these Italian devils recorded some real neo-folk tunes with a marching, pop touch this time !
And due to its peculiar oddity it will become a very unique feature into the official Teatro Satanico’s discography, since here we are talking about “no-synthesizer musik”, the trademark of the previous Teatro Satanico releases.
Expect the unexpected ! Believe the unbelievable !
Once again Teatro Satanico proves to be one of the more original and unforeseeable contemporary post-industrial project in a post-industrial scene full of poseurs, fake-artists and obvious predictable releases.
Beware of Teatro Satanico, they do bite your certainty!

YULE (21 December 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

VARIOUS ARTISTS

PEOPLE TAKE WARNING! (Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938)


Original Issue: 2007 Tompkins Square (TSQ1875) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from Pitchfork:

Times are tough. Times are always tough. But times used to be much tougher.

A recent report noted the global rise of the standard of living, and the U.S. stock market keeps hitting all-time highs. Even if the relative prosperity of America is tempered by the troubling observation that, contrary to the usual positive economic indicators, life isn't getting much better, life in general doesn't seem that bad.

Every so often, though, we get a glimpse of what once was and what could very well be again. The precarious, precipitous housing market leads to talk of recession, which inevitably brings up depression. The Hurricane Katrina humanitarian disaster provided an alternate-reality view of the United States as Third World nation. The resolution of the United Auto Workers strike settled the weight of thousands of jobs bobbling in the balance. The death toll and number of wounded in Iraq and elsewhere creeps upward, reminders of a time when sacrifice was compulsory, not voluntary.

Yes, times are tough, but times used to be absolutely terrible-- rife with starvation, disease, extreme poverty, and senseless death. As relative prosperity continues unabated, perspective predictably fades. People Take Warning: Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 provides that perspective with three discs of abject misery, songs about misery, miserable people, and the miserable things they've done or that were done to them. It's the epitome of a bad trip back in time, and a riveting collection of musical snapshots capturing a country teetering on the edge of the abyss, looking down, and singing songs about what they see.

Titled "Man V. Machine", the first disc focuses on songs of train wrecks, plane crashes, and the odd car accident, and features lot of songs about the Titanic, in particular. The other two discs are titled "Man V. Nature" and "Man V. Man [And Woman, Too]", respectively, and tackle just what their names imply: natural disasters and good ol' fashioned murdering.

It's harrowing and horrifying stuff, but there's a twisted element of rueful humor to this set, too. "If it bleeds, it leads," goes the cynical journalism saying, and these horror stories, drawn from headlines, serve much the same purposes as the tabloids, providing tales of loss you can't turn away from. It's also a little like the scene of the accident on the side of the highway, with traffic slowed to a near halt so that everybody can get a good look, as if they don't already know what they're going to see.

You generally know what you're going to get here, too, but just because it's familiar sounding hardly means it's full of household names. The set inevitably includes a few songs from such usual suspects as Son House and Charley Patton, as well as often anthologized tracks like Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks". There are also plenty of well-known subjects, like the infamous Old 97 train, conductor Casey Jones, the doomed Tom Dooley, and the reliably murderous Stack O'Lee. But there are countless surprises as well, like "El Mole Rachmim (für Titanik)", a song that stresses how much the great ship's sinking resonated with recent Eastern European Jewish immigrants.

Music like this has always been the province of obsessive collectors, and it will probably always remain that way. But there's no question that having this music packaged together by experts and fans beats scouring estate sales for fragile 78s. Whether beautifully packaged (like the astounding gospel collection Goodbye, Babylon), thematically organized (the fun medicine show soundtrack Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937), or both (the still essential Anthology of American Folk Music, which, lest one forget, really was once just part of one man's collection), it's still remarkably powerful and moving all these years-- but really not that many-- later. As Tom Waits puts it in his introductory essay, "The scratches on the 78s sound like the ocean in a shell, and the songs are riding inside across time."

FULL BEAVER MOON (13 November 2008)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

BLOOD AXIS & LES JOYAUX DE LA PRINCESSE

ABSINTHE: LA FOLIE VERTE


Original Issue: 2002 Athanor (ATNR 017) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

A recent discovery for me and an unvaluable gem!

Totally mesmerized by this masterpiece...this is the sound of my beloved Europe!

I am the Green Fairy
My robe is the colour of despair
I have nothing in common with the fairies of the past
What I need is blood, red and hot, the palpitating flesh of my victims
Alone, I will kill France, the Present is dead, Vive the future.

But me, I kill the future and in the family I destroy the love of country, courage, honour,
I am the purveyor of hell, penitentiaries, hospitals.

Who am I finally? I am the instigator of crime
I am ruin and sorrow
I am shame
I am dishonour
I am death
I AM ABSINTHE

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1 Folie Verte (I Am The Green Fairy) (3:40)
2 Symphonie Verte (And Here I Am, An Absintheur...) (4:59)
3 Minutes D'Absinthe (Let Me Be Mad, Mad With Absinthe) (1:59)
4 Absintha Taetra (Opaline) (6:58)
5 Poison Vert (D'Après Frédéric Barbier) (6:57)
6 Avec Les Fleurs... Avec L'Absinthe (With Flowers And With Women) (1:58)
7 Absinthine (D'Après Emile Duhem) (0:55)
8 Variations Sur Le Thème De Corelli (By Venus And Cupid) (4:05)
9 Variations Sur Le Thème De Corelli (That Night, I Drank Deeply) (13:20)
10 Princesse Verte (D'Après Emile Spencer) (5:37)
11 Fée Verte, Vous Êtes Jolie (Chanté Par Affre) (2:10)

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from Athanor webpage:

Absinthe: La Folie Verte is a sonic and poetic invocation combining mind-altering music and powerful recitations of Absinthe-inspired poems of the fin-de-siècle.

These elements unite with a brilliant graphic presentation to conjure an emerald realm of euphoric delirium. It is also one of the most obsessive recordings ever made: the various melodies that float across these soundscapes derive from forgotten Absinthe songs of the past; actual elements of the latter, derived from old cylinder recordings and 78s, have also been carefully stirred and distilled into new formulations by Les Joyaux de la Princesse.

Furthermore, all aspects of this album (instrumentation, spoken recitations, and even the final mixing) were executed under the influence of the drink. The end result is an impressionistic tour-de-force and the ultimate aural hymn to la fée verte, the Green Fairy.

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from Compulsion:

Blood Axis & Les Joyaux De La Princesse release their long-awaited celebration of that intoxicant of aesthetes: absinthe. It is said Van Gogh sliced off his ear while under the influence, Hemingway, Poe, Rimbaud and Wilde regularly imbibed the green liquor, Picasso even painted The Absinthe Drinker. Long outlawed in many countries Absinthe is regarded as one of the most potent drinks ever, its psychotropic effect a result of the wormwood herb and exceedingly high alcoholic content.

Michael Moynihan has long been an advocate of the transcendental nature of absinthe, and has been instrumental in its resurgence in America. The debut Blood Axis album, The Gospel of Inhumanity, even featured an ode to this bedevilled drink. Like Moynihan, the other musicians on this CD have all become obsessed with the drink, distilling their own recipes and creating their own rituals to accompany their absinthe sipping evenings.

Absinthe: La Folie Verte is imbued with stirring orchestrations and lush string segments, while Moynihan with deadpan delivery recites poems culled from the late 19th Century. Absinthe: La Folie Verte evokes a turn of the century Parisian café with age-old absinthe songs salvaged from the past. Produced in collaboration with the Absinthe Museum, Auvers-Sur-L'Oise, this is a beautifully packaged and extensively researched document that should appeal to anyone transfixed with the mystique of the Green fairy. When one considers that the EU ban on Absinthe has been lifted, variations of the drink are available in UK public houses, and numerous books have just been published documenting the effects of the Green liquor it appears that Blood Axis and Les Joyaux De La Princesse have managed to capture the zeitgeist of today while conjuring an atmosphere of 200 years ago.

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from FluxEuropa:

In a collaboration with the French project, Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Michael Moynihan's Blood Axis forsakes militaristic bombast to deliver a homage to absinthe, the notorious fin-de-siècle tipple distilled from an infusion of wormwood. Michael reads from contemporary texts condemning or examining the gods and demons of the absinthe experience, against a dreamy mood-evoking ambient soundscape. With snatches of period music weaving in and out of the cacophony, the album successfully captures that sense of distance associated with intoxication as it takes us on a journey into the addled brain of the absintheur.

Absinthe had such a bad reputation - at least partly due to harmful additives - that it was widely banned for most of the twentieth century. An idea of the taste of historical absinthe can be gained from Pernod, a modern wormwood-free absinthe. Pastis is similar but the dominant flavour is liquorice rather than aniseed. Michael Moynihan and Annabel Lee of Blood Axis and Erik Konofal of Les Joyaux are all imbibers of the liquor and have long experimented with homemade varieties. Modern, commercially manufactured absinthe has only a tenth of the psycho-active 'thujone' present in the original, but my own experience suggests that even this has an effect more akin to drugs than alcohol.

FAREWELL MOON (epitaph musick)

This post is dedicated to Hector Zazou (11 July 1948 - 08 September 2008)

ZAZOU HECTOR

SAHARA BLUE

CHANSONS DES MERS FROIDES

Original Issue: 1992 Made To Measure (MTM 32) & 1994 Sony Music (COL 477585 2)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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Tracklistings: Sahara Blue and Chansons Des Mers Froides

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from Wikipedia�:

Zazou first came to international attention as part of the ZNR duo with Joseph Racaille, where both played electric keyboards. Their 1976 debut album Barricades 3 was notable for its "strong Satie influence, stripped to minimal essentials, everything counts".

Long-time collaborators include trumpeter Mark Isham; guitarist Lone Kent; cellist and singer Caroline Lavelle; trumpeter Christian Lechevretel, who has appeared on all of Zazou's albums after Sahara Blue; clarinetist and flutist Renaud Pion, who has appeared on all of Zazou's albums since Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses; drummer Bill Rieflin; and Japanese recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

His discography demonstrates his affinity for cross-cultural collaborations, and incorporated modern techniques and sounds in re-recordings of traditional material. He was influenced by Peter Gabriel's album Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ in his fusion of musical polarities (traditional and modern, electronic and acoustic) on his own album Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses.

Zazou regarded his work during the 1980s as his time of apprenticeship in the studio. On his 1986 album, Reivax au Bongo, he experimented with fusing classical vocals with an electronic backdrop. On his 1989 album, Géologies, he combined electronic music with a string quartet.

The albums that he has released under his own name from the 1990s onwards are usually concept albums that draw from literary or folk sources and revolve around a specific theme. The collection of songs on each album assemble contributions from a diverse and global range of pop, folk, world music, avant-garde, and classical recording acts.

Zazou's 1992 offering, Sahara Blue, was based on an idea by Jacques Pasquier. Pasquier suggested Zazou commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of author Arthur Rimbaud by setting music to Rimbaud's poetry. Contributions included spoken word from Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Dalcan and music by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, Tim Simenon, and David Sylvian. He even adapted a traditional Ethiopian song.

In 1994, he released the album Chansons des mers froides (called Songs from the Cold Seas for the anglophone market). The album was based on ocean-themed traditional folk songs from northern countries, such as Canada, Finland, Iceland, and Japan. It featured vocals by pop and rock artists such as Björk, Suzanne Vega, John Cale, Värttina, Jane Siberry, and Siouxsie Sioux in addition to recordings of shamanic incantations and lullabies from Ainu, Nanai, Inuit, and Yakut singers. Musicians included Mark Isham, Brendan Perry, and the Balanescu Quartet. A cameraman accompanied Zazou on the project and they shot and recorded in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Japan, Scandinavia, and Siberia. The single "The Long Voyage" was the only song to be an original composition from Zazou. He wrote it in gratitude to his record company Sony who gave him complete artistic liberty. Performed by Suzanne Vega and John Cale, it was released as a single in 1995. The single featured remixes by Mad Professor as well as Zazou himself.

His 1998 album, Lights in the Dark, showcased ancient Celtic music sung by Irish singers.

Zazou's collaborative 2000 album 12 (Las Vegas is Cursed) with Sandy Dillon was regarded as a financial and critical failure. In the book "Sonora Portraits 2", which accompanies the CD Strong Currents, Zazou says that 12 (Las Vegas is Cursed) was his most elaborate album. He describes it as a work of black humour and regards his instrumental composition "Sombre" on the album as one of his best songs ever.

Strong Currents was released in 2003 and featured an all-female vocal cast which included Laurie Anderson, Melanie Gabriel, Lori Carson, Lisa Germano, Irene Grandi, Jane Birkin, and Caroline Lavelle. Musicians included Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dennis Rea, Bill Rieflin and Archaea Strings. The album took six years to complete.

In 2004 Zazou released a companion CD of sorts, L'absence, which included instrumentals, many of the same female vocalists that were featured on Strong Currents, and one male vocalist, French singer Edo.

Zazou has recently been a member of the musical collective named Slow Music. The lineup also included Robert Fripp and Peter Buck on guitars, Fred Chalenor on bass, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Bill Rieflin on keyboards and percussion. He contributed electronics to the group's music, and much of his recent work, including a soundtrack for Carl Théodor Dreyer's silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc and the multimedia collaboration released as a CD in 2006, Quadri+Chromies, has focused on electronic sounds produced on computers.

A number of recent projects are documented on the Music Operator interactive multimedia web site, which graphically documents his recent collaborations while in the background his recent music plays. In january 2008 Hector Zazou released his newest album, Corps électriques, featuring "one of the original riot grrrls" KatieJane Garside, Bill Rieflin, Lone Kent and fusion jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær.