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.

SAMHAIN (31 October 2008)

The Musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

WHEN

SVARTEDAUEN (THE BLACK DEATH)


Original Issue: 1992 Tatra (TATCD 008)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 The Black Death (38:27)

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from Jester Records:

In 1992 came When's heaviest piece, Svartedauen (The Black Death), inspired by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen's drawings with the same name, describing the ravages of the plague in Norway during the Middle Age.

This single 38-minute piece is by many considered Pedersen's most evocative album.

Svartedauen contains elements from Norwegian folk music played on fiddle and mouth harp, terrifying symphonic parts à la Death in the Blue Lake with pounding drums, choir and strings, and a carpet of other grotesque sounds: hearses, moans of the dying, rats, flagellants? whips and a scythe being sharpened, to name a few.

Did you record sounds yourself, or did you get them from elsewhere?

LP: "I mixed many of my own sounds, and borrowed some from Norwegian Film. Bernt Kanstad, the technician, was working there, so I got access to many sounds that I sampled, looped and used manually. And I recorded many scraping sounds on a big, old cello that was standing in the studio, but many of those sounds were heavily manipulated afterwards, so you can?t always hear that they are cello sounds. I like working that way: not using entirely natural sounds, but doing something extra with them".

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from Volcanic Tongue:

When is the solo-project of Lars Pedersen, known for his work in Norwegian art-rockers Holy Toy in the 80s. His When project seems to be his own musical playground, as every album seems different from the other.

The later works have been prog-rock/pop vein, but Svartedauen, his third album from 1991, is a pure 38 minute musique concrète sound-collage. Svartedauen translates to The Black Death and the album is an abstract sound-journey of the plague entering and ravishing the Norwegian countryside in 1349, killing two-thirds of the Norwegian population within a year.

The album was inspired by a series of haunted and eerie drawings of Theodor Kittelsen from 1900 on the subject. Pedersen has made a soundtrack to it.

Fans of Norwegian black metal will recognize the Kittelsen art as the same that adorns the cover of several Burzum albums. A little known fact is that Burzum, and most other black metal musicians during their church-burning heydays, were big fans of this When album. Listening to it with that in mind it actually makes a lot of sense.

Svartedauen in many ways manages to evoke the feeling of doom and medieval dread that the rock-Satanists attempted with distorted guitars. It’s a scary and uncomfortable listen.

GHOST MOON (imaginary musick)

CARETAKER (THE)

SELECTED MEMORIES FROM THE HAUNTED BALLROOM

Original Issue: 1999 V/Vm Test Records (OFFAL02) (Buy it here!)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

The atmosphere created here is superb, taking old 78s and drowning them in mental distortion, going some way to what was going on inside Jack Nicholson's head in the film "The Shining" (inspiration for the project and one of Margot's favorite) - www.discogs.com

Here you can read an interesting article about Hauntology.

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1 The Haunted Ballroom (3:44)
2 By The Seaside (4:00)
3 One Thousand Memories (1:25)
4 Haunting Me (3:48)
5 A Summer Romance (3:05)
6 Den Of Iniquity (2:45)
7 Dream Waltz (3:29)
8 A Handful Of Stars (3:34)
9 Request Dance (5:09)
10 In The Dark (3:02)
11 Reckless Night (3:02)
12 Thronged With Ghosts (3:48)
13 From Out Of Nowhere (3:45)
14 Friends Past Reunited (2:00)
15 You And The Night (3:12)
16 Moonlight Seranade (2:34)
17 Disillusioned (2:41)
18 The Revolving Bandstand (0:47)
19 Garden Of Weeds (3:06)
20 "Excuse Me" For Ladies (0:59)
21 In Days Of Old (2:14)
22 September 1939 (1:57)
23 Thanks (3:25)
24 The Haunted Ballroom (3:20)
25 Untitled (3:29)

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from The Caretaker homepage:

Dusty and forgotten memories, echoes and vibrations from the past.
Using as source, recordings from the 1920's and 1930's era of Ballroom music.
Often painful and desolate memories, recalled and replayed from beyond the grave of our senses.
In amongst this darkness lies the solace of a semi-recognizable melody or phrase, a beacon of light in this often dark and distant ocean of haunted recalled audio.

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from Boomkat:

The Caretaker has always been the more thoughful alter-ego of V/VM - the Stockport based butchers have been grinding up sound for quite some time now, and this full length was originally released way back in 1999.

A nice diversion from the demonic plugin-fuelled insanity of their more well known work, Caretaker instead goes for industrial ambience. Think Skinny Puppy’s more cinematic moments and you’ll be somewhere in the right area – what I love most about this album though is the kind of reverberating fairground mood.

Seaside organs hiss and hum in the background and give the record a persistent menace, a thick nostalgic groan which reminds me of Jeunet and Caro’s shiver inducing ‘Cite Des Enfants Perdus’ or maybe even more fittingly David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’.

Vinyl crackle rings out across the album as if it’s being played as an instrument and before long you’ll be certain you don’t live in the real world anymore. Utterly unique and really quite scary, in the best possible sense.

GHOST MOON (imaginary musick)

A SMALL, GOOD THING

SLIM WESTERNS

Original Issue: 1994 Soleilmoon (SOL 23CD)

Reissue: 2002 Leaf (BAY 8 CDX)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1		Godforsaken (6:23)
2		Drowning Light (3:49)
3		Twice As Evil As You (3:01)
4		Hole In The Heart (3:53)
5		Gulch (5:17)
6		Flamenco 1 (2:42)
7		Scorched Earth (4:05)
8		Heathaze (3:51)
9		Someplace South Of Here (6:38)
10		Gunsmoke (2:37)
11		Flamenco 2 (2:06)
12		Saguaro (6:01)
13		Jane Russell (2:11)

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from Epitonic:

A Small Good Thing specializes in the imaginary soundtrack, a narrative musical format pioneered by Barry Adamson, who intended his albums to be bleak noir soundtracks to films that never existed. With an imaginary soundtrack, the composer uses the tropes of film music -- notably, incidental interludes that link dialogue and dramatic orchestrations to crucial plot development -- to set a moody context, leaving the listener to fill in the visual blanks.

A Small Good Thing's debut album, 1994's Slim Westerns, is a gorgeous ambient album set out to dry in the southwestern desert. On the song "Godforsaken," A Small Good Thing drops ample references to Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores, adding the dusty sounds of a slide guitar over ambient passages that would make Brian Eno proud.

"Somewhere South of Here" gets tense with the persistent toll of a funeral bell and a handful of badass spoken word samples from world-weary gunslingers. "The Pink & Purple World Of Dishonesty" tells a cyber-noir tale drawing from the jazz-laden soap opera scores that Angelo Baldamenti composed for "Twin Peaks."

"Peep-Show Eccentriques" is a slow electronic swing number topped off with muted trumpet, while "Re-Arranged Face" features a drunk solitary pianist tapping out irregular chords that succumb to a digitized electronic wash.

Jim Haynes

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from Spyderbites:

When I first began reading the descriptions... "music for an imaginary western" and "ambient rodeo music", this sounded like something I'd like.

It is. Slim Westerns sets an arid, ambient southwestern desert mood. Get used to the dusty sound of slide guitar...

...from the opening notes of godforsaken , until the disc's close some 52 minutes later, you'll be hearing alot of it, and other variations. This entire disc is built mainly upon these acoustic and electric tones, along with various percussive, electronic and sampled elements. The strummings and pluckings of the first track will give you a good idea of the things to come.

Judicious use of samples throughout the disc help build the western aura; in drowning light, it is a man's lonesome whistle that adds to the music. (Really, think about it... they could have gone nuts with the sound effects; horses, gunshots, honky-tonk pianos, saloon fights... but they keep it appropriately low-key)

twice as evil as you is the only track that seems to break from the CD's southwestern mode (and has no guitar); it's much more gothic, sounding like music for a cheesy made-for-TV horror film (and really, I mean that in a good way...). Solemn bells accompany wood synth and string for this.

Then, back to the desert... Peaceful sounds of finger-strummed guitar and light percussion form hole in the heart. The mood is much lighter than the title might imply.

gulch opens with the whoosh of a rope, the squawk of buzzards and the tolling of a funeral bell. Various thrumming chords and low electronics also punctuate the piece as it unfold. flamenco 1 fades in like a mirage rippling slowly in the sun, shimmering beautifully for a short 2:30.

A slow, sparse arrangement of plucked strings and piano tones make scorched earth the mellow beauty that it is. Its companion piece, heathaze features more strummed and picked acoustic guitar layered over a smooth bed of synth, and closes with the same notes that open the previous tune.

Spoken word samples (assumedly from old Westerns) and clanging metal flavor someplace south of here, as does its sloowly pulsing electronic rhythm. Many other instruments and sounds blend in unobtrusively (but what are those gregorian monks doing out there?!) Another short track, gunsmoke gives us more guitar and background synth.

flamenco 2 adds strange electric burblings to the ripples of its previous namesake, but for barely 2 minutes. saguaro continues to successfully mine the same general musical vein, adding a bit of twanging jew's harp. A breathy wind instrument accompanies the dryly whimsical strum of the disc's closer, jane russell.

It strikes me as odd how these English musicians (A Small, Good Thing is a side project by members of tribal ambienteers O Yuki Conjugate) are again setting their ambient excursions in the American Southwest, as did The KLF with Chill Out . But, at any rate, I'm just glad they have.

I love it with both thumbs! It's serene, interesting and so atmospheric. One of my personal favorites. Turn your living space into an American desert paradise.

David J Opdyke