- From the Shepheard’s Kalender (1656)
Before we say goodbye to MMXII, here are a few bits and pieces that have escaped the blog, but have been circulated on my Twitter and Facebook pages.
First, I was very pleased that both Warren Ellis and John Coulthart had some nice things to say about my music, which gives me reason to start 2013 and the final preparations for Angelystor with a spring in my step! Also, the Leila Waddell material seems to have been phenomenally popular, thanks to everyone who has stopped by this humble blog!
Over Christmas I added a couple of miscellaneous bits to the Soundcloud account, which I hope to use more often (as well as mirroring the XETB archive on Bandcamp when I get time).
First up was an unreleased XETB track based around a banjo improvisation in the Dorian mode, which Ficino associated with the sun, Apollo and “simple, reverential and earnest” music. Personally I decided it was a bit too aimless and full of fluffed notes to make it onto a release, but I still think it has some charm! The title itself comes from Il Mondo Magico de Gli Heroi, an obscure work on alchemy, which includes a number of explanations of alchemical symbols such as the Sun and Moon based on extensions of their names. LUNA thus becomes LUx NAturae, SOL becomes Solum Omnium Lumen, and so on. Although I’ve yet to read it, I understand that Il Mondo Magico is a key element of Joscelyn Godwin and Guido Mina di Sospiro’s Forbidden Book.
The other new addition to the Soundcloud was a recording of my mother, singing at a local folk club back in 1971! This is one of my favourite songs, and one that I also often sing, although in a longer, and somewhat ‘bluer’ version!
Finally, if you missed it at the bottom of an earlier post, here’s a lo-fi recording of The Institute of Stone Age Sex doing part of their live thing.
Happy new year!
Phil
Larkfall 