North of the Moon - Three Australian Faerie Bards

Faerie News

North of the Moon: Three Australian Faerie Bards
Introducing our new digital album at Bandcamp

In Tree Time, three Celtic-Australian minstrels united to bring you some of their most fairytalish songs. Together they wove music with myth and fairytale. Instruments on this collection include flute, mandolin, accordion, charango, guitars, harps and bardic vocals, from folklorists honed in storytelling, mythology, poetry and Druidic / Pagan / Fae paths.

The Mermaids by Ferdinand Leeke, 1921

From Druidic circles to taverns, carnivals, fey indie labels, fairy shops, storytelling guilds, castles and audiobook soundtracks, they've fostered links between folklore and eco-spirituality. Hailing from three States of Australia, they joined webs at the Equinox, north of the moon. Let these whimsical balladeers carry you through seas and groves of Faery lands.

We warmly welcome you to visit us: 
Bandcamp & You Tube

Adrienne Piggott of Spiral Dance

'Under the Dock Leaves' by Richard Doyle, 1878

'The Children of Lir'
by John Duncan, 1914

'In a time of bards and chieftains, 
when the bright ones walked the land
And beauty slipped from silver strings 
touched by a minstrel’s hand 
In a time when giants held the hills 
and stone circles rang with song
And the Lia Fail stood in the soil 
and Tara’s walls stood strong.'

- from 'The Children of Lir' by Adrienne Piggott

'The Hesperides'
by Arthur Rackham, 1913

'The Garden of Hesperides'
by Edward Burne-Jones, 1877

Reilly McCarron
of Meadowlark Soundscapes

'Crystal drops and dragon stones are hidden in the maze

The green isle of apples awaits your longing gaze'

- from 'The Isle of Apples', by Reilly McCarron 

Louisa John-Krol
Elderbrook

Blue Tree by Karan Wicks

'Tig, Tag, Toe, and wouldn't you know?
Nimble my ride to Ramble Row'

- from 'Gwyllion' by Louisa John-Krol

North of the Moon:
Three Australian Faerie Bards

You Tube

Bandcamp

Fey thanks

Louisa, Reilly, Adrienne

Two great bands whose names begin with D !

Faerie News

Two of my favourite bands have been up to magic. From one hemisphere to the other, Dandelion Wine and Daemonia Nymphe are giving time a shake.

Dandelion Wine

Dandelion Wine - ethereal electro-medieval band

Saturday 10th April, one of my fave bands, ethereal electro-medieval luminaries Dandelion Wine, play their first live show since Dec 2019. Their concert beams in simultaneous livestream via Darkstream Festival (Deutschland) at 1.00 DE time, or 9pm EST AU. If you’re lucky enough to be in Melbourne, you can experience the full pageant at The Alex Theatre, St Kilda. Seek their albums & vids on the web too; instruments include lute, bowed psaltery, flute, bell cittern, sansula, cello, keyboards, electronics, various guitars, dulcimers and avant-garde vocals. And oh! Never, ever underestimate lyrics by artists who read books with lobster pincers by the glow of a lava lamp.

Dandelion Wine - Australia

Bandcamp

Website

Facebook 

(for festival virtual link)

Daemonia Nymphe

Daemonia Nymphe
performing music for Shakespeare's play Macbeth
at the National Theatre of Northern Greece

Here is my adaptation of Daemonia Nymphe's news. As is my custom, I never represent anything in such detail unless I love it! So consider this a rave review:

Daemonia Nymphe have revisited their haunting 'Witches' Lullaby' at Bandcamp. Having composed this music for Shakespeare's supernatural masterpiece, which thaumaturges traditionally called The Scottish Play for fear of invoking bad luck, Daemonia Nymphe staged their own masterwork at the National Theatre of Northern Greece, directed by Anastasia Revi. 

This melody represented the Shakespearean witches, enigmatic and dangerous beings who manipulate Macbeth and make us wonder if they truly are the Fates. 

The lullaby is a melody that symbolises birth: new life. In many cultures, life's loom has trembled under the hands of the Fates. In ancient Greek mythology their names were Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos; the first represented the present, the second the future and the third the past, all that has happened and cannot be changed. 

Lullabies have their own inner strength that can follow a soul into this world. Yet lullabies change depending on who sings them, when the protective force they emit has another starting point and carries different dreams … 

So, based on their melody of the original lullaby (the dark lullaby of Shakespeare's witches), the composers set out to create four original lullabies. Each of the five artists involved had freedom to create a unique lullaby, imparting their own idiosyncratic meanings.  Japanese Hattis Noit, Spanish Priscilla Hernandez, British/Portuguese Victoria Couper in collaboration with British/Turkish Reyhan Yusuf and Greek Evi Stergiou, convey through their voices a memory of their own tenderness, strength and hope. 

Listening to the results at Bandcamp is like sipping an exquisite, rare nectar (I might say ambrosia of the gods, if it were not hubris), with varied piquancy at each listening, like altered consciousness.

Evi Stergiou and sisters of Daemonia Nymphe

Spyros Giasafakis with beloved muse, Evi Stergiou
Daemonia Nymphe
Instruments by Nikolaos Brass

Bandcamp

Daemonia Nymphe You Tube Channel

Acrobat in Daemonia Nymphe concert

Daemonia Nymphe

Evi Stergiou of Daemonia Nymphe

So there you have it! Dandelion Wine and Daemonia Nymphe! Two distinctive bands whose names start with 'D', each carrying two words. Their founders are all literary, vibrant and daring. All are friends with whom I've sung over the past two decades. And yet for all the parallels ... an enticing contrast with each other! Like I said. Magic.

Afterword from the blogger, Louisa John-Krol:

Please support our international ethereal music scene. We are small, our genres are diverse but we often overlap in unexpected ways, sonically, thematically, eco-spiritually, poetically or philosophically. Despite our abiding communal spirit, it is practically impossible to maintain studio recording, touring or publishing if listeners do no more than affirm a social media post or cycle through the web without considering how - or even if - any revenue reaches the artists. There is a reason many of us have gone over to Bandcamp. I highly recommend this platform and hope more people will join us there.

Yours in curiosity and respect 

- Louisa John-Krol, Australian Fairy Review.