Faerie News
Fey greetings! Thanks for visiting my newly retitled Australian Fairy Review, which replaces my Fairy Tale Ring blog, retaining some content.
- Louisa John-Krol.
Recommended: The Adventurous Princess and other feminist fairy tales, written & illustrated by Erin-Claire Barrow, based in Canberra, pictured here with my collection of her art so far, including her alluring set of swap cards. Erin-Claire's website
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| book & pictures by Erin-Claire Barrow! |
Kathryn Gossow of Brisbane, following her haunting novel Cassandra (reviewed earlier on this blog) released her new book of short stories on the same publisher (Odyssey Books), entitled The Dark Poet. Kathryn has also contributed a story to our forthcoming fairy tale Anthology (more info below* & at our new website). |
| Photo by LJK |
Kathryn Gossow's own website
One of my favourite magic-realists, African-Australian Dr Eugen Bacon, launches her new book Claiming T-Mo (Meerkat Press) on 1st August at Readings, Hawthorn:
Book your attendance here
Eugen Bacon's own website
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| Eugen Bacon's book launch! |
Thrilled to attend the Bendigo Writers Festival, especially the session with Dr Kate Forsyth - acclaimed author, storyteller & fairy-tale researcher - with focus on her new book, The Blue Rose.
I also passionately recommend Kate's books Vasilisa the Wise and The Buried Moon with ethereal photo-illustrator Lorena Carrington, who is also a contributor in our Anthology, on the same publisher, Serenity Press.
For more books & beauty: Kate's website. Lorena's website.
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| Kate Forsyth's new book! |
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| by Louisa John-Krol |
Music Reviews
These resided on my homepage for over a decade. Moving them here, I avouch that these albums have withstood the pounding of time with grace and fortitude. Stock might have sold out, so if you hunt them down, all the better! They reside in my own collection in Australia.
1666
studio album by Keltia
[Li Mohe Music, Belgium]
My initial impression of 1666 is of sylvan Frederique, the Belgian singer/harpist known as Keltia. Clad in seaweed, ivy and moss, with fins and shell-like claws or webbed fingers characteristic of Celtic sea-merrows, she evokes also an ancient Greek siren or French Melusine. So I felt visually positioned to listen to enchanting sounds, with a sense of seduction and danger associated with the mermaid archetype. Keltia never disappoints. Her voice and harp immerse the listener in the mysterious waters of her secluded grotto.
It’s hard to find a more eerie opening than #1 ‘Judas’. Her imagery and sound are like the perfect hybrid of Enya and Jarboe of The Swans.
Track #2, ‘Cassandra’, delves into more traditional Celtic harp plucked melodies, hearkening to Keltia’s debut ‘Si-Ren’.
Other instruments include violins (electric and acoustic), claviers, played by Cecile Gonay; as well as bass and percussion, by Franck Marchand. Keltia’s voice and harp seamlessly unite them.
#4, ‘Une Fee dans une Lanterne’, is the most immediately faerielike piece, with its music box bells, reminding me of Bjork’s ethereal album, Vespertine.
There are also electro / trip-hop elements, such as #5 ‘Broceliande’, calling to mind such eclectic bands as The Moors, Gjillarhorn, Nehl, or Sigur Ros.
‘Les Lotophages’, #8, is my favourite, due to the compelling, urgent rhythm and sophisticated chordal pattern, combining to massage the senses and imagination.
‘1666’ - title-track and finale - imply a late-Renaissance or Baroque context, yet there are other references, including the Pre-Raphaelites, Kate Bush in the haunting Never Forever, author A.S. Byatt, the superb Mera Sangeet Kho Gaya music by Persephone of L’ Ame Immortelle, and medieval troubadour (trouvere) tales about Melusine. It’s a paradox I love: a questing spirit nourished by earlier mentors who have dived into the well of the Muse, yet also uncompromisingly original.
This album is thrilling. It dives, gasps, sighs and plunges into the soul.Review by Louisa John-Krol, Australia Fairy Review
Also highly recommended: Keltia's more recent title: Les Métamorphoses
Krataia Asterope
studio album by Daemonia Nymphe
[Label: Prikosnovenie, France - the band originates from Greece, but is now based in UK]
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| Krataia Asterope by Daemonia Nymphe |
Songlist : 1 : Esodos, 2 : Krataia Asterope, 3: Daemonos, 4: Nocturnal Hekate, 5: Mouson, 6: Dios Astrapaiou, 7: Divine Goddess of Fertility, 8: Sirens of Ulysses, 9: To Goddess Mnemosyne, 10: Hymenaios, 11: Ecstatic Orchesis
Krataia Asterope (Great Lightning), by Daemonia Nymphe, is classic pagan folk. Ironically whilst reviving antiquity, the album transcends time. Its lyrical texture is opaque, yet lucid. Its tone shifts from subterranean, anagogic chanting to pure arcane joy. The content combines academic depth with imaginative flair.
Instrumentally, Daemonia Nymphe recreates Greek Antiquity using lyra, varvitos, krotala, pandoura, double flute and other archane instruments made by Nicholas Brass.#1: ‘Esodos’ highlights a fascinating contradiction. It really lives up to Prikosnovenie’s stylistic references, Enya and Dead Can Dance. If they are unlikely bedfellows, the influence of each is present. Consider the Watermarkish layered choirs of resonant, urgent echoes, their staccato softened firstly by heavy reverb and secondly by the approach to mixing. These lines are coupled with distant processional brass, seeming to announce ancient deities, so characteristic of early DCD albums such as In the Realm of the Dying Sun, a candle of mysterious grandeur carried into the new millennium by other legendary bands, such as Arcana from Sweden.
My favourite piece is #5, ‘Mouson’. It carries some of the most beautiful melodies I’ve ever heard, hewn with superb arrangements.
Another highly memorable piece is #6, notable for the grainy, almost gruff vocals of the famous Cretan singer Psarantonis (Antonis Xylouris).
Enigmatic, recondite male vocals (spoken and sung) are balanced by sweet, yet often thrillingly wild, Balkan female singing, representing the two faces of anthropocentric religion. The result is more than a well researched esoteric offering. It rings of a genuinely oracular summoning. Whilst introductory notes cite Homeric hymns and Sappho’s poems for Zeus and Hekate, in a space inhabited by Mnemosyne and Daemon (Deus), it’s possible also to feel something akin to the cabbalistic, sagacious, Delphic, Orphic and Hermetic aspects of ancient spirituality or ritual.Review by Louisa John-Krol, Australian Fairy Review
More about Daemonia Nymphe:
Latest news, mid 2019:
Practising on the 'ancient' Greek lyra in east London, soon to enter the studio again to complete his solo album, is Dae Nym founder Spyros Giasafakis.
Until then, listen to Archaia Ninemia, recently released on bandcamp and
Music video (youtube)
In archival spirit, here's the CD cover of an early self-titled Dae Nym album:
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| Dae Nym's self-titled early CD cover |
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| disc art, debut CD - my collection |
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| Collector Woodbox with solo music by Spyros Giasafakis 'Improvisation in Ancient Greek Instruments' |
Members of Daemonia Nymphe
(at the time of this review a decade ago):
Spyros Giasafakis, Evi Stergiou, Maria Stergiou, Christos Koukaras, Dafni Kotsiani, Baggelis Pasxalides
Dancing act: Zoe, Anastasia
Instrument manufacturer: Nicholas Brass
[Note, upon advice I am ready to update the aforementioned list - L]
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Also recommended:
Daemonia Nymphe's soundtrack for Macbeth (arising from their extensive theatrical work with Shakespeare groups in the UK), and their studio album Psychostasia.
Daemonia Nymphe teaserDae Nym at Bandcamp
French record label of this Greek band: Prikosnovenie
Arcana Eco
studio album by Ataraxia
[Ark Records, Italy]
In the centre of Italy, Autumn 2003, I was honoured to meet Francesca Nicoli of Ataraxia. Their book & CD set Arcana Eco comprises 7 exquisite songs with a sumptuous array of photography, journal entries, biographical details, lyrics and poetry, springing from musicians and other artists in Ataraxia’s circle, including journalist Ferruccio Filippi and photographer Livio Bedeschi.
All these unfurl in a tapestry of interlinking threads, like Italo Calvino’s Tarot in his novel A Castle of Crossed Destinies, complete with a bookmark in a box smooth as pearl. They might indeed be the ‘Tides’ turned to ‘silken boxes’ given to mermaids (p110).
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| Arcano Eco by Ataraxia from my private collection |
‘I still feel the emerald lymph of the thousand leaves I have swallowed
running through my veins. And I sing.’
(Francesca Nicoli)
No music collection is complete without this ‘ambrosia… that feeds the soul and the dreams.’ (p.132)
Review by Louisa John-Krol, Australia Fairy Review
Silver Swan
studio album by Qntal
[Imaginosis / Drakkar / Radar / Noir Records - Germany, USA]
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| Silver Swan by Qntal from my private collection |
Imagine dipping into a lake that gleams from an inner light. You are gliding, streaming through currents of melody: all around you the water transforms into a sparkling carpet of stars and moons. Such was my experience of diving into Silver Swan, an album swanlike in grace.
Avantgarde German band Qntal are described as medieval rock, electro-folk or darkwave. Alongside their medieval-classical ensemble Estampie, they've garnered respect for their discography of five albums since their formation in 1991. Silver Swan draws from this wellspring of exotic instrumentation including Saz, Shalmei, Ud and Tar, clad in the captivating voice of Syrah (aka Sigrid Hausen). Eloquent lyrics, derived mostly from historical sources, evoke the ambiguous caprice of elementals and complexity of human nature, as in the contradiction implicit in lyrics by Elizabeth I, ‘Monsieur’s Departure’:
‘I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
since from myself another self I turned’
Silver Swan merges exquisite illumination by faerie illustrator Brian Froud with sensual photography by Jens-Peter Rosendahl, directed by Robert Gould (Imaginosis). Thematically it stirs an alchemical cocktail, from ‘Silver Swan’ by Orlando Gibbons (1563 – 1625) and the classical myth of Leda and the Swan, to sci-fi (Stargate Atlantis, Farscape) and Froud’s design for movies The Dark Crystal and Goblins of Labyrinth. In the special edition, this imagery is elaborated in a bonus disc by glimpses of Froud’s books (Faeries, etc) with a CD-Rom display. There are echoes of The Mask and Mirror by Loreena McKennitt in the evocation of swans, luminous colours against ebony, sumptuous ethnic fusion of eastern and western sounds, and romantic mood. Yet Syrah’s voice hints at darker shadows, farther into faerie grottoes, plunging into moss and gloaming.
This is not another ephemeral wave rippling across ethereal music. Silver Swan, like the abiding love of that bird whose name it bears, heralds constancy in the rapids of our music industry. No connoisseur’s cave is complete without it, while general collections would be enriched by this magnum opus.
Review by Louisa John-Krol, Australian Fairy Review
Qntal's band homepage
Imaginosis
[Imaginosis is a transnational American company representing Qntal]
