FULL BEAVER MOON (10 November 2011)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

KEYES NORAH

SONGS TO CRY BY FOR THE GOLDEN AGE OF NOTHING



Original Issue: 2004 Dual Plover (PBD-703)

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from Blunt:

"This CD is absolutely off its chops, or at least this woman seems to be. If a cackling old witch playing a spooky organ and caterwauling extremely depressing tunes while accompanied by violins and auto harp is your Sunday cup of tea, then I’m sure you’ll adore the quite disturbing sounds of Nora Keyes. You think Joanna Newsom or the Dresden Dolls make some freaked out shit, Los Angeles born Nora kills them for sheer peculiarity. She’s the bastard child of Anton LaVey and Kate Bush and apparently she’s riding her broomstick down for the Big Day Out. Oh…you should be scared all right." - matt reekie.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from Soundplay:

"If the girl from The Ring had an organ stuck in the well with her, this is the kind of music she would make. Not the remake either, the original Japanese version...it’s heaps scarier. Nora Keyes has released her debut album on the eccentric Sydney label dualpLOVER, and to put it bluntly, it’s frightening. Songs to Cry by is a concept album interwoven with themes of life, death, suffering and (surprise, surprise) transcendence. Full of haunting melodies, gloomy lyrics and a sinister, even bloodcurdling vocal styling, it’s definitely not for the faint hearted. As her organ plays on, we’re confronted with the many paradoxical incarnations of Nora Keyes. She appears both ominous and pure, wicked and beautiful. Clearly, Keyes experiments with her range, shifting from an angelic falsetto to witch-like howling and cackling. There’s a duality, a sense of familiarity juxtaposed against that of the unknown, like that of a dream. Maybe this fiendish witch has appropriated sounds from my nightmares? ‘Cauliflower’ is haunting – the drone of the organ fading through a series of twisted harmonies. While Nora’s vocal range is altogether astounding, it is at times painfully evocative. On ‘My Child’, Ms Keyes howls: “my child eat your little, cold, piece of meat and your soggy brussel sprouts / because you have nothing / in a puddle of urine / not your own.” Positively disturbing, these lyrics create striking visual imagery. ‘Old Pal’ – which, coincidently, is a Jimmie Rodgers cover – is the lightest track on the album, as Keyes breaks into a possessed, but strangely effective, form of yodelling. In ‘The Show is Over’, Nora shapeshifts yet again, this time adopting a childlike quality to her voice. But more or less, this banshee seems to float on some dark rain cloud, eerily overseeing an ominous world of cruelty and bedlam. This is truly original stuff from a lass who apparently grew up in a haunted house. Maybe that explains it. Regardless, organs are really, really creepy. Period." - Cassandra Kiely

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from NO-FI:

"This is Nora Keyes' (of The Centimeters) new solo album and it is everything I hoped it would be. The best way to describe it would be if you were digging through a crate of old 78s and found a dusty old album in the back covered with earth and leaves with songs by a woman who has probably spent a lot of time alone in a shack before recording her music. The recording itself really does have the feel of a much older recording with vocals that sound like they were recorded at the same studio that did recording for those old black and white Popeye cartoons. I love all the songs on this album, but I think my favorites are "Small Apart" (which I saw her perform at a Centimeters show before with a bunch of her teeth blacked out which added to the effect of her creepy cackling during the song), "Look At You, You're Ugly", and her cover of a Jimmy Rogers yodelling song called "Old Pal" (which I would love to direct a video for...it would be neat to see Nora in a 50s style cowgirl outfit). Other people performing music on this album are Creekbird, Rebecca Lynn, and Ray Day of The Centimeters and Dame Darcy (whose weird episode of Blind Date I finally saw today) on Autoharp and Saw. This is not "normal" music by any means so get this if you are looking from something so different from mainstream music today that it may as well be from outer space. This is good music for taking a bath or doing work in the toolshed." - Chris Beyond.

IMBOLC (02 Febrary 2011)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

SEPI KUU

RANNAN USVASSA


Original Issue: 1980 Heliander (Help 703)

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪from CD Reissue Wish List :

An amazing find... intense droning Finnish vocals and searing fuzz guitars with hand percussion. Sounds like the more serious tracks on Walter Wegmuller's "Tarot" album. Or even Sergius Golowin's "Lord Krishna Von Goloka". Comes completely out of left field, and is pretty much one of a kind, especially considering the time and place.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from New Gibraltar :

Rannan Usvassa (Heliander HELP 703) may be the most obscure Finnish progressive rock album. In fact, even the identity of the musicians behind the pseudonym Sepi Kuu is unclear. Stylistically Rannan Usvassa (In the Mist of the Shore) is actually more late-in-the-day psychedelia than progressive rock, as most of the album's twelve short tracks build on a few chords strummed or arpeggiated on acoustic guitar, over which an unsonorous voice more recites than sings blank verse about existential angst and mysticism by the numbers. Organ, oscillators and flute gather their modal mist around these structures, while a fuzz guitar occasionally snakes up to thicken arrangements with background growls or, in the case of "Puhukaa mitä puhutte" ("Say What You Will") and the title track, understated solos, in a style remotely comparable to early Jade Warrior. Bass and percussion also make appearances, played with the same homespun plainness and lack of technical boasting that marks the whole project - for better or worse.

There is a decidedly amateurish air about the monotonous staccato thrum of "Tämän linnoituksen on kestettävä" ("This Fortress Must Stand") or the stop-start, kindergarten-variety proto-industrial-metal muck that accompanies the vicious circle of amateur-philosopher homilies in "Ajatus" ("Thought"). And yet "Muuratut kasvot" ("Bricked Faces") digs up surprising lyricism from its dusky vocal melodies, ringing guitar arpeggios and meditative keyboard solo, while the one instrumental "Manvantara" cleverly flanks its centre-position solo flute with asynchronous sets of drums panned to the opposite sides of the stereo field, each coupled with a feedbacking guitar or synthesizer. As a small-time psychedelic album Rannan Usvassa is quite acceptable, but any aura of lost classic obscurity may have furnished it with is totally unwarranted. And obscurity was a fact in 2004, for the original vinyl was very rare and no CD release existed (the Tachika pirate-CD-R edition does not rate as one).

Kai Karmanheimo

FULL HARVEST MOON (23 September 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CHURCH UNIVERSAL AND TRIUMPHANT INC. (THE) FEAT. ELIZABETH CLARE PROPHET

THE SOUNDS OF AMERICAN DOOMSDAY CULTS (VOL. 14)


Original Issue: 1990 Faithways International (No Number)

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from Synrecords.com:

A document of the spellbinding chants, call-and-response decrees, hypnotic invocations and prayers performed against the demon rock'n'roll by the ultra-conservative new age church universal and triumphant, led by charismatic, gun-hoarding nutjob elizabeth clare prophet--who is believed by her followers to be divinely inspired by a host of ascended masters, including merlin the magician, hercules, william shakespeare, jesus christ, gautama buddha, the archangel michael, and other emo legends. humorous for its damnation of seemingly harmless rock stars like billy joel, which explains why negativland and other experimentalists would sample it, this mesmerizing, all-vocal performance should fascinate listeners interested in la monte young's drones, kurt schwitters' "ursonate," or the stringent choral works of ligeti, penderecki and scelsi.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from Aquarius Records:

It's hard to believe this is real. In fact, it took a lot to convince Andee, who was sure this was some sort of elaborate prank. But it's one of those things that just makes you proud / embarassed to be an American. Elizabeth Clare Prophet purchased 24,000 acres in Paradise Valley, Montana and started The Church Universal and Triumphant, a creepy new age doomsday cult in which Prophet channeled spirits such as Jesus, Buddha, K-17, Morya, Quan Yin, Afra, Hercules, Mighty Victory, Astrea, Shiva, Pope John XXIII, and more. (Sort of like J.Z. Knight of Yelm, Washington and her channelling of "Ramtha" except even more scary.) Prophet and her husband stockpiled arms, built giant bomb shelters, and coerced their devotees to purchase their own survival equipment at exorbitant prices. Throughout its existence various members of CUT were indicted for kidnapping, lost custody of the children who belonged to the church and were investigated for tax exempt status and firearms violations. In 1995 former member Joeseph Pietrangelo Jr wrote a book condemning CUT entitled "Lambs to Slaughter: My Fourteen Years with Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Church Universal Triumphant".
But the thing that really puts CUT on the map for us is their way of conducting their religious services. The tapes of these services have been floating around for years already. Those of you familiar with Negativland's 1989 album "Escape From Noise" will already be familiar with an excerpt of one of the tracks on this album, as they used it for the track "Michael Jackson", and Steve Fisk has been using these tapes for years as well. This record features live recordings of Clare Prophet 'speaking' out against the evils of rock music. She sounds perfectly normal as she introduces her 'psalms' or 'songs' or 'speeches' or whatever they are. But when she gets going, it's amazing. And so goddamn insane sounding. Her rapid fire high pitched testifying sounds a bit like an impossible mix of an auctioneer, a yodeller, the guy who sings the directions at a square dance, Neil Hamburger huffing helium and variations of baseball's 'hey batter batter' chant only faster. It's like that sound you make when you sort of hum/breathe out and move your finger up and down between your lips making a sort of 'bebubebubebubebubebubebubebubebu' sound. It's one of the most amazing things we've ever heard! A must for all cult fanatics, new age withdrawal victims, seekers of the truly strange, and fans of extended, trance-like vocal techniques. Ever so highly recommended! We'd almost have made this cd edition our Record of the Week if we weren't certain that it would probably bug the heck out of more people than (like us) would love it!!