Australian Fairy Review: CD Reviews: Le Monde Saha, Babel & Through a Sylvan Doorway

Faerie Reviews

A peculiarity of this Blogspot menu is to denote headings as dates, not titles. So I sometimes lose track of posts. Fortunately, these albums are so fantastic that it won't matter if I duplicate my appraisal of them here, at Australian Fairy Review:

Albums of appraisal in this post are Le Monde Saha by Nehl Aëlin, Babel by Rajna and Through a Sylvan Doorway by Spiral Dance.

Nehl Aëlin

Le Monde Saha

by Nehl Aëlin

France

Website

Label: Danse Macabre

Japanese mysticism meets French cabaret in sparkling melodic, vocal interplay. This is sensual, lush, avant-garde, daring, luminous indie-pop. Style refs for Nehl Aëlin: Camille, Kate Bush, Olivia Ruiz, Nico, Emilie Simon, Tori Amos, Cocteau Twins (especially in sylvan, impish vocals), and perhaps for millennials, Florence and the Machine. Inspirations for her piano playing include Bach, Chopin and Debussy. Classical makes love with carnivale.

Song List:

L'Enfer Avichi et les passions trompeuses

1. So Easy
2. Overdrive
3. Striking the Strings
4. Dell

Fleur de Lotus

5. Au delà du Mont Minobu
6. Les fleurs de Mandara
7. La voie du Milieu
8. Hojo takeka
9. Yo tiende sona

Les Quatre Incommensurables

10. Syrens' Gate
11. N'cha
12. Au village Pingouin
13. Je hais les araignées

Nehl Aëlin

Review by Louisa John-Krol, enhanced 2019

Above & below:
Nehl performing with me
at Trolls et Legendes
in Mons, Belgium

Babel

music by Rajna

a French trance-world ethereal duo

Website

This masterpiece by accomplished multi-instrumental French duo Rajna, carries spiritually enlivening vocals, dulcimer and symphonic vistas.

Jeanne Lefebvre’s voice is as dextrous and lush as that of Lisa Gerrard (DCD) and Raphaela Hermes (Stella Maris, Das Zeichen) and would very likely appeal to fans of Irfan, Gor and sToa, too. (Indeed, sToa founder Olaf Parusel participates in this album.)

Fabulous composers, arrangers and players: in my enthusiasm, pretty sure I bought it twice. No connoisseur’s cave is complete without Rajna’s music. Rajna's male half, Fabrice Lefebvre, plays these instruments on these recordings: duduk, santoor, ney, bouzouki, chiffonie, chalemie, whistle, bendir, req, derbuka, gong, cymbal, argul and keyboards. Olaf Parusel contributes organ, saz and medieval harp, while Gabriel Sienkiewicz plays viola.

Louisa John-Krol with Jeanne Lefebvre

I was very fortunate to meet both members of Rajna backstage after my show at a festival in Mons, Belgium, 2009. They knocked on my door to introduce themselves, and I wish that we could have enjoyed more time together, as circumstances have precluded my travel to Europe since that year.

A decade later, their music has improved with age: like a fine wine, it continues to gain delicious depth with time.

Although they have released CDs on record companies over the years, including one that released most of my own (French label Prikosnovenie), this gem is available in limited edition at Bandcamp, a great indie site that I passionately recommend for lovers of rare, collectable classics.

Song List:

1. A prayer for rain
2. Ziggourat
3. Hanuz Nist - sToa cover
4. Na Traya
5. The Garden of Babylon
6. Voyage of the Magus
7. Cathar's song
8. Offering - Olaf Parusel version
9. And the leaves are falling...
10. The Wedding
11. Crescent Moon

Review by Louisa John-Krol, revised/expanded 2019

Through a Sylvan Doorway
by Spiral Dance

Through a Sylvan Doorway

music by Spiral Dance

a South Australian mythic-rock band

Website

A blossom in the garland of a fecund discography, Through a Sylvan Doorway is the first double-CD by Australia’s leading mythic folk-rock band, Spiral Dance. As the title suggests, there are themes of woodland reverie, herbal magic, rune stones, forest guardianship and wild energy of a faery ring.

Herne beckons on the front cover, standing with his staff among eucalyptus trees, while around the foreground borders, European ivy mingles with red blossom of native flowering gum, hinting at integration of British and Australian vegetation. (Lyrics in the the album’s title-track name “Eucalypt Red Gum Elm and Oak”, further highlighting the universality of forests.) The archetype of Herne is universal, too. For example (according to Borges), among the Dakota Sioux, a horned hunting god Haokah used the wind as sticks to beat the thunder drum. Over this woodland an owl presides: sentry above a tree’s door inscribed with runic spirals, a gateway all the more mysterious for being half-seen. And perhaps it is not the only “sylvan doorway”? We could also interpret the central clearing as an entrance, for it reaches back, vanishing in green mist. (Green is often said to be the favourite colour of Faery, though this might depend on the season, or focus of each elemental.) Louise Hewett’s illustration is woven seamlessly into photographic vistas of lush greenery and standing stones, by designer Kim Brown.

Adrienne Piggott

There is considerable symmetry in this album. Two discs in the digipak flank the booklet’s pocket like twin moons of a triple goddess. There are eight tracks on each disc. The album’s illustrator Louise Hewett’s songwriting contributions appear in the 6th track of each disc. Paul Gooding’s tune set “The Wyvern Rider’s Tune Set” closes on the same musical theme on which it begins. Meanwhile, throughout the album there’s a balance of original and traditional material, including poetry by Richard Jones and William Morris. There’s also a cover by UK druid Damh the Bard, who appears as guest on Adrienne’s version of his song “Spirit of Albion”. Harmonies of the band’s male singers come to the fore in this song.

Spiral Dance
website

Defying jig-friendly expectations, the album opens with a quiet song that is instrumentally sparse, featuring Nick Carter’s plucking, reminiscent of All About Eve. Only in the second song, “Fae Dance”, does the full band swing in, with Rick Kearsley on drums, Paul Gooding on accordion, David Bentley on bass, Ingrid Hapke on violin, and Nick Carter swapping acoustic for electric guitar. This is the first Spiral Dance album of which Nick is also engineer (at RixWorld and Red Dog Audio). It is indeed well hewn.

Lyrically, the album is eloquent. Consider these lines: “And he with all his peacock stance and his feet of clay”; “There’s faces in the leaves, their green beards hanging down / Old Woodwise has laid his cloak upon the ground”; “When frost lay on bare branches / Beneath moonlight’s silver gleaming”; “On the breath of velvet wings”; “Hidden in the darkling leaves / The winds of night will take you / Into a twilight dream”; “Oh honey comb maiden brown apple tree mother”; “It flies on wings of fury”. These words ring together, visually and musically. Once artists work with a timeless archetype - be it the Nordic Odin, Greek Pan, English Robin Goodfellow or Celtic Arianrhod - characters can organically leap forth, revelling in collective imagination. One risk with lyrical abundance is that syllables sometimes vie for space. If the listener’s ear has been swaying in trance, ambient, neo-medieval, darkwave or other spacious genres, it might need to leap from a canter to a gallop. Once that pattern is established, one catches the graceful phrasing. If that’s a bard’s first calling, the other is to create lucid melodies. These, too, are vividly present. Adrienne, the band’s founder and leading lyricist, spent many years in English villages, studying their heritage. She’s had long contact with storytelling, dance and songs, immersing herself in mythology and folklore. It was a South Australian historian (former band member) Bronwyn Lloyd, who first introduced us to each other. Both Adrienne and Bronny have squired Morris Dancing Sides, respectively named Hot for Joe and Hedgemonkey, for over two decades. This background underpins many rhythms and themes of Spiral Dance.

Adrienne Piggott

Meanwhile, Adrienne’s voice is testimony of a kinship with ballads. Her ability to tell a story through song is particularly evident in “Of Gods and Other Men”, which she performs effortlessly a cappella, with the oft repeated line “I shall tell you tales”.

Some of these songs, such as “Feet of Clay”, were unleashed on stage in several states prior to release. A fluent interplay of instruments, well rehearsed through frequent touring, is one of this band’s hallmarks. The revamped “Rise Up” has already appeared not only in many shows, but also in an earlier form on the band’s retrospective 2010 album From the Mist. It might have been a summoning call for Through a Sylvan Doorway. Continuity meets new growth. Familiar trees soar among saplings, providing shade and shelter amid splashes of sunshine, sprouting leaves and buds. Camaraderie bubbles to the surface like a woodland stream, impossible to resist.

Song List (Double Album):

Disc 1:

The Sylvan Doorway

Fae Dance

Spirit of Albion / Wooden Box

Asgard’s Chase

The Wyvern Rider’s Tune Set

Gift of the Boinne

Rise Up

Winter’s Dreaming

Disc 2:

Witch’s Tree