Tuesday 22 February 2011

An Oblique Parallax of English Speaking Folk Song - Part One

This is the first of what will be an ongoing series in which I'll be approaching Folk Songs from the English Speaking Tradition in a way that might be unfamiliar to those used the orthodox approach to such things but which nevertheless reflects a lifetime of singing, researching, loving & living the songs themselves.  That said, the inner-aesthetic here reflects not only the overall modality of the Traditional Idiom from which these songs arose, but the rusticity that was their natural habitat which distorts and obscures as an essential aspect of the hoary patina such material has acquired over the ages.

With that in mind, each piece will be accompanied by suitable imagery drawn from the vernacular idioms of medieval English Woodcarving which survives in our churches & cathedrals in the form of misericords, each tableau echoing analogous narrative concerns to those expressed in the songs.  Whilst such resonances are entirely intuitive they are nevertheless deserving of a wider consideration.

The link for each song is the title itself which will take you a free MP3 download via Rapidshare.

Sedayne, 22nd February 2011





Recorded : Friday 18th February 2011 - kaossilator / microcube / accursed viol & singing
Realised : Tuesday 22nd February 2011 - filters / Ableton Live
Photography : The Stalls of Manchester Cathedral, Saturday 12th February 2011

This is an improvisation recorded entirely live using 4 large diaphragm condensers - two for the amplifier & two for the viol & voice.  As with the initial improvisation, the secondary processing occured in real-time using the various filters & vinyl distortions of Ableton 3.  The piece is extended over a duration of 16 minutes, the first 11.40 of which are entirely instrumental, after which the song is intoned to an improvised melody  in approximation of the given (traditional?) melody.

I am a brisk lad but my fortune is bad and I am most wonderful poor.
Oh, indeed I intend my life for to mend and to build a house down on the moor, me brave boys
And to build a house down on the moor.

The farmer he do keep fat oxen and sheep in a neat little nag on the downs.
In the middle of the night when the moon do shine bright, there's a number of work to be done, me brave boys. There's a number of work to be done.

Then I'll roam all around in another man's ground and I'll take a fat sheep for my own.
Oh, I'll end his life by the aid of my knife and then I will carry him home, me brave boys,
And then I will carry him home.

And my children will pull the skin from the ewe and I'll be in a place where there's none.
When the constable do come, I'll stand with my gun and swear all I have is my own, me brave boys.
And swear all I have is my own.
(Source: Various, including A L Lloyd, Folk Song in England; presumably, therefore, traditional)
 

Thursday 17 February 2011

Dark Season



Sedayne : January 2011 : accursed viol / electric bass / kaossilator / filters


Thursday 3 February 2011

Sedayne on Soundcloud

There's a few Sedayne tracks up at Soundcloud to listen or free-download with more to follow in due course. Including:

Dragon's Den (Ragas & Pastourelles, 2010) - kaossilator driven Third Ear Band tribute with pocket trumpet, accursed viol & doromb.
Folk Fusion Tumour (Ragas & Pastourelles, 2010) - real-time ambient electronica for two kaossilators & Ableton Live.
Acres of Self-Regarding Wank (AKA Death Masque) (Sonatas & Ostinatos, 2010) - extended Gothica improv for violin, bass guitar & kaossilator continuo; gets good after the 11-minute mark.
Eventyr (Unreleased) - bucolic domus improv on a home-made overtone flute.
Winter Pastoral (Winter in Purgatory, 2010) - old style acoustic modal raga & free-form hedge-laying by way of Auld Lang Syne, with citera, violin, overtone flute, birds, pocket trumpet, bells, fowler calls, frame drum etc. etc.

Check them out at the link below: