Introduction

Tim Renner, the musician behind Hand/Eye and Dark Holler labels plus the leader of Stone Breath and known as Tim The Revelator is running a unique concept from March 2005 for a year.  At each of the thirteen full moons he will release a three inch CDr with specially commissioned wyrd folk music by leading artists (with bonus CD inclusions).  These CDrs are produced in a limited run of 100 copies available by subscription only.  We have subscribed and intend to cover the music at this page.  A detailed overview from Tim of the concept is at the page bottom.  It may be possible to subscribe part way through the year and obtain the CDs missed. 

Volume 10:  15th December 2005    Full Cold Moon

‘Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice’ are the featured artist for the tenth CDr in the series on a relatively short piece called ‘How The Winds Are Born By You’. This band is collected obsessively by some and seen as the leading exponent of free-folk-drone-acoustic experimental music. I’ve never felt this, their releases are always interesting but often seem to lack focus and not to actually develop. For advocates, I’m speaking heresy I know but many people would listen and wonder what the fuss is about.

Here for example we get a minimal rhythm playing on bones or shells and very soft fragmentary guitar. There are occasional wails and blown instruments in the distance like some tribal ritual and fundamentally that’s it. Fans of early Animal Collective and Davenport would like it but it does go as far out as either. However its not as wild as The Wooden Cupboard or as musically accomplished as the Jewelled Antler artists. Here so little is communicated, I’m not sure what it’s actually for. I haven’t felt the magic yet.

There is a welcome bonus disc this month seeing the debut of ‘Far Black Furlong’. This is a band that includes a good friend of mine, Richard Moult who we have featured at the site for this classical rural song and art. The CDr was recorded live in a garden in Wales. It starts with the fourteen minute ‘Etched In A Silver Round’. This is a delicate, possibly hesitant drone that radiates both mystery and beauty. It sits somewhere between the slow contemplation of The Deep Listening Band and the bucolic folk drones of the Deserted Village Collective. It’s very slow to unfold with held notes from woodwind and touches of banjo. This is stronger for than the main release for the month, music that seems to exist on the cusp of musical styles, the sombre grace of Webern, the invocation of nature by John Ireland and the folk-as-alchemy of early In Gowan Ring.

As the piece evolves ripples of echoing guitar add movement to the pensive wind instruments and chimes. It gradually forms into changing chords with spectral piano melodies. Then towards the end something begins to emerge from the shadowy borders of the garden. A menacing undertow comes into the music that seems to converge towards something inhuman glimpsed for a second. The music recedes back to the night, foxes scampering across the lawn, looking for a moment then darting back to the darkness.

‘Far Black Furlong’ itself lasts only a minute, so quiet it is almost impossible to hear, the minimalism of Fennesz produced acoustically. Finally comes the excellently named ‘Icy Solstice Eye’ which has solitary Harold Budd-like piano set amongst glass-drones and softly probing guitar. A female voice begins to intone ‘the cold moon rises….’ and carries on to describe an absolutely sublime pagan solstice dream invocation. Here it reminds of Anne Clark or Simon Fisher Turner’s excellent ‘Bliss’ album back from the early 1990s.

This is a lovely, gentle and warming piece of music for a cold winter. One of the peaks of the ‘Folklore of the Moon’ series. Hold it dear.

Volume 9:  15th November 2005    Full Beaver Moon

For our ninth selection in the series we have The Does who on their first track ‘Cold’ sound like This Heat collaborating with Faust. That is to say, strange instrument treatments and droning sounds mixed with urgent unconventional guitar rock. The drum beat is deliberately primitive but the guitars churn out a piercing riff as strange noises surge in the background.

‘Devil’s Night’ is like a rock song deconstructed to the bare components and like last month shows a lot of influence from both trash-metal and the ambient-metal scene. To be honest for me and I imagine many who aren’t drawn to that music, it’s pretty tiresome. The feedback is nice but the piece doesn’t seem to do anything, just bang out a noise. ‘Over’ is different with a slow breakbeat, a processed female vocal and slow feedback and guitar harmonics taking us back to the isolationist hip hop of Scorn.

‘Cold’ is reprised for the fourth track as a quite interesting psychedelic drone before the swathes of dominating, corrosive guitar sweep in. Then on the final track ‘Starlight’ we have a lonesome piano and female vocal song. This is closer to Fursaxa or Spires That In The Sunset Rise. With a distinct melodic development and an interesting double-tracking on the vocals this is particularly effective. It’s a shame for me that it comes at the end of music sonic sludge that was done more effectively by bands like Loop and Hair Skin and Trading Company.

Volume 8:  17 October 2005    Full Hunters Moon

Our eighth month in the series brings us two CDrs once again. The first main CDr is by The Goslings. On this release the music is far removed from the wyrd-folk that may be expected and instead we have slow sludge-rock with overdriven, fuzzed guitar riffs, wailing distant vocals and minimal drums. As I listened to the first track ‘Roman Candle’ it took me back to the early thrash rock's slower side and of course the currently popular so called ‘ambient-metal’. Second track ‘White Kitten’ is more sparse, similar but without the heavy central riff which is doubly compensated for on the final ‘No More Ribbon, No More Kite’. It’s difficult for me to be objective about this music, I’m sure within its form it’s good but I pretty much left this kind of music behind fifteen years ago and wouldn’t intentionally revisit it.

A bonus CDr is always welcome of course and this one is by ‘Shane Speal’s Head’ who I have never heard of and called ‘Lunatic Howl’. On the first track it is stark acoustic blues songs on the ‘motherless child’ theme. ‘Axe Murderer’ is next and is a series of amplified acoustic experiments. ‘Shooting Star’ is a Residents style minimal electronics and perverse effects laden vocals. ‘Moon and Stars’ has a potentially interesting spoken word that is manipulated and set against peals of slide guitar. ‘Stars In My Life’ has a rudimentary folk type song but ‘In The Pines’ is somewhat better with rippling echoing guitar and a more authentically blues styled vocal. Like Ry Cooder playing guitar for a particularly demented Tom Waits song. ‘A Song About The Moon’ at the end seems to lose any semblance of cohesion, just repeating the title song over a blues. I think it’s meant to be funny but for me, it’s pretty awful

Volume 7:  17th September 2005    Harvest Moon

This CDr in the series arrived in a black rather than white sleeve with a hand drawing rather than a moon shaped picture. It is apparently by ‘Black Ships’ and upon putting it in the player, immediately its true origin is clear. This is non other than David Late Tibet / Michael on vocals and Ben Chasney on guitar in an exclusive foretaste of Current 93’s forthcoming ‘Black Ships Ate The Sky’. It provides a companion piece to the obscure ‘Coptic’ CD which provided a similar preview of the album. ‘Black Ships Ate The Ship’ is due in early 2006 seems to be highly personal for David, a mixture of his emotional witness and apocalyptic vision. Although only five minutes in length, it is an intense experience. The acoustic song is enshrouded in slow coils of feeding back electric guitar. This album sees David pour out the signs of the apocalypse he sees in a more literal way than the mysterious symbolism of old. It deliberately unsettles, even confronts the listener but is always controlled. We’re pleased to have played a tiny part in bringing David and Tim Renner together and we hope for further collaboration in the future.

Volume 6:  19th August 2005    Full Sturgeon Moon

‘The Floating World’ is Amanda Votta who here plays five pieces for the sixth release in the series. We start with ’The Dreamless Vigil’ with tranquil layered flutes playing slow melodies, each note echoing away. Although sonically different this echoing instrumental provides a continuity between last month’s and this month’s release in the series. This piece is like being in awake in sleep, aware but unable to move. It’s particularly well done and also reminds of the recent Xenis Emputae Travelling Band and Sedayne releases.

Next is ‘Lilac’ which uses the same palette but is even more restrained, a lonesome melody only occasionally overlapping with other notes. This has a genuinely haunting feeling, like the soundtrack to an especially atmospheric ghost film. Our third piece is ‘Anenome’ which barely exists at all, the notes hanging in the air as scent rather than music. On this basis it’s an intoxicating but out of reach perfume. Fourth piece ‘Orchid’ has tiny clusters of flute notes layered over each other, sometimes sounding electronic but I suspect all played. Perhaps it is an effect of this type of music but by now it is not being heard at a conscious level and now has changed the room I am listening in to evoke ruins in an empty field at dusk. Our final track on the Cdr is ‘River of Flowers’ which has a warm melody, gentle like a stream on a Summer’s day.

Here we have a very different release, this atmospheric lonesome flute music evoking the strange and unseen in a subtle and profound way. It’s brevity means it has passed quickly, soon becoming only a scent warmly but barely remembered, dispersed and drifting in the breeze.

The Floating World web site is at http://www.myspace.com/thefloatingworld

Volume 5:  Full Moon 21st July 2005     Full Buck Moon

This new Cdr in the series is created by Ben Carr as 'Theory of Abstract Light / 5ive', who is joined in 5ive by Charles Harold and on this track by Marc Schlelcher on vocals. I had not heard Ben as ‘Theory of Abstract Light’ before although he did release an album under the name three years ago. Ben runs the Odd Halo Recordings label and studio where he created these pieces.

Under the ’Theory of Abstract Light’ name there are two tracks ‘Pass Out’ and ‘Balance’. On the first track we have soft acoustic strumming with some gently meandering lead electric guitar. This is a short track which acts as a prologue for the much longer second piece. This second piece has a psychedelic, exploratoration of space feeling about it. It is shimmering layers of electric guitar weaving awed melodies of cosmic infinity. It is hushed in wonder, more engaging than ambient music but still mysterious. It’s a very good example of non-rock based guitar psychedelic with strings bending with endless echoes invoking early Pink Floyd or more recently the Welsh band Alphane Moon.

5ive is another creative outlet for Ben and shouldn’t be confused with the defuned Britpop band of the same name. Here it starts like an excerpt from Jimi Hendrix playing ’Voodoo Chile’ live. Over the intensive circling 60s psychedelic rock jamming the voice of ’Cokedealer’ is head. This is a paranoid speech from a someone at the edge of despair and violence. After a few minutes the speech becomes more worrying, exploring mental illness and dragging someone under the house. The music likewise fragments into haunting shrieks of never ending electric guitar. As we listen it becomes ever more disturbing, the music splintering with the echoes now of multiple conflicting voices in his head. Later the voice of Marc enters singing the words of the coke dealer in a mocking call and response. Towards the end it slows into a drugged slumber before fading away to a merciful ending.

July’s release is a very different one for the series and welcome in bringing diversity and artists perhaps less known to Tim Renner’s usual audience.

A Ben Carr interview http://www.creative-eclipse.com/file/interviews11.htm

The Odd Halo Recordings Web Site (with free MP3s) http://www.oddhalo.com/

Volume 4:   Full Moon - June 22nd 2005   'Full Strawberry Moon'

This month saw the largest full moon in the UK which will not be seen for another nineteen years.  It's therefore appropriate that this month's release is by Kawabata Makato of Acid Mother's Temple, one of the defining and most influential acts in psychedelic music of the last twenty years.

For this very special release we have a single track on mini 3" CDr called "Do You Remember Our Moonshine Magic?".  It is performed on electric guitar, dulcimer, bouzouki, hurdy gurdy and voice.  It effortlessly sits between musical genres, combining psychedelic rock with acoustic folk.  It starts from a shimmering acoustic base, over the course of the piece introducing expansive effects that cause the instruments to reflect and reverberate as though moving out into a huge space.  It has a sad, wistful feeling at the start, the loneliness of early dawn in an empty garden,  but as a riff locks in and a bass guitar starts propelling the piece it starts to soar and expand, with each iteration getting larger and more celebratory. 

Although this piece does not have drums to give it obvious power, it achieves dramatic force through it's carefully revealed crescendo-ing structure.  This has qualities of artists like Taj Mahal Travellers, Steve Hillage and Ravi Shanker in it's natural fusion of east and west, raga and folk, progressive rock and hushed meditation.  A pinnacle of the form that makes the series an ever more essential purchase.

Month four also brings a very welcome bonus disc from Martyn Bates, ex-leader of Eyeless in Gaza and key driving force in the development of experimental acoustic music since the eighties.  Before the concept of wyrd folk had even been envisaged, Martyn was making 'murder ballads' that prefigured the idea and took it into personal exploration.  Although a bonus disc, this has as much care and attention paid to it as the other CDr this month and comes with a thematic aspect integral to it's creation. 

The piece is called 'Liet Motif'' and weaves two aspects together, first a pre-17th traditional song 'The Twa Sisters / Minorie' learned from Ewan McColl's version that in the words of Martyn combines 'both malevolent and benign characteristics'.   Woven in between restatements and evolutions of this song are instrumental sections  that aim to evoke the tragic romance of mankind's desire to become our own god at the heart of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'.    Frankenstein was a book that talked of the desire to transcend the emptiness of human existence by becoming gods ourselves, creating perfection.  The inevitable imperfection of our heretical creation reveals our own folly and ignorance, the lack of grace at the heart of our being and a message against the quest of alchemists (or now modern scientists).  However more than this it is a romance of man with himself and of the monster's desire to become us as we try to become god.

It appears then that this release in it's alternating sections and explorations of both positive and negative, in the song and in the allusion to Frankenstein is concerned with the duality at the heart of humanity, the unresolvable struggle that drives us to sustain.   Whether this is an adequate answer to the pizzle Martyn sets in his sleeve notes, does not matter for the music speaks for itself.  Combining traditional 'folk song' with dread filled instrumentals of silent heresy that tell of crumbling manors, of rejected crying women and of chemicals bubbling, on the way to creating life that should never be.

Volume 3:   Full Moon - May 23rd 2005   'Full Flower Moon'

For this third release one of the originating wyrd folk artists 'In Gowan Ring' are featured.  This band centre around B'eirth from USA and make a delicate folk that combines psychedelia, medievalism and exploration into a cohesive and inventive sound that is distinctive to them.  They have released important albums such as 'The Glinting Spade' and 'Hazel Steps Through A Weathered Home'.  B'eirth also has a solo album called 'Birch Book' due for release in 2005 that we have reviewed in advance which you can read/hear if you click here.  In the last year he has been living off the coast of the USA on an island and recorded a series of evocative demos that he kindly provided to us for people to hear.  Many of these were part of an evolving informal 'lunar songs' concept, linking the moon and ocean together.  It was perhaps therefore natural that this series series being based on 'the folklore of the moon' would be the right home for a few of the songs here and may be heard at this site if you click here.  They excellently illustrate the process of evolution in moving from simple demo to a carefully expanded finished song.

The CDr contains five tracks starting with 'Limpid Brook' adapted from the work of Isadore Ducasse.  It is a typically beautiful song starting with gong and moving into flute and layers of plucked acoustic guitars.  As always with In Gowan Ring there is a feeling of mystery that pervades but is not audibly tangible.  This song has a melody that the listener is immediately familiar with, seeming to be a song already heard but is a quality of B'eirth's song writing.  It ends with the gong again fading the song back to a haze of memory.

Our next song is 'Clover' which brings in hand percussion, skin drums and shakers adding a tribal element to a short middle eastern sounding raga instrumental of flute and guitar, plus occasional tiny bells.  Then the gong heralds the evolution into 'Moon Over Ocean' with ocean sounds swirling amongst bass and guitar.  This is an excellent song that was first heard in the demos collection mentioned earlier.    There is excellent use of reverberation effects to give a feeling of space to the music and wonderful echoes on B'eirth's singing at points and hushed whispers of ocean weaving almost imperceptibly around the song.  It confirms this as a quietly psychedelic epic that is at the absolute peak of the style.

Fourth track 'Marigold' is another instrumental with a beautiful interwoven guitar and flute refrain that is both calming and poignant.  Final track 'Aurora' was again on the demos collection and here is expanded to with careful sound processing and layers at points in the vocals, almost as though two different singers are heard together.  There are quite lovely harmonies and an air of suspense and unfulfilled expectation, of promises broken and yearning never to end.  Accordion, distant harmonica and mournful clarinet add to the sound with this song also having wonderfully effective but subtle use of stereo panning to give an expansive sound.  Like 'Moon Over Ocean' there is a wistful, resigned feeling to this song that often sits at the heart of In Gowan Ring's best works.  It often reminds of Donovan's 'child' oriented songs like 'The Lullaby of Spring', although In Gowan Ring are sufficiently talented to take this forward and make music that is theirs distinctively rather than merely derivative.

This is perhaps in some ways the most straightforwardly folk based release so far in the CDr series and certainly one of the most accessible to the new comer acting as a good primer for the series and also for In Gowan Ring themselves.  However there is careful and controlled experimental aspects woven into the fabric of the music, it's to B'eirth's credit that these sit within the song, helping to bring out it's qualities.   As a fan of the band it is perhaps almost expected that I will enjoy this release but it stands up (quietly) in its own right and demonstrates once again how artists working outside the mainstream can produce powerful works that will resonate with the listener far beyond their initial hearing.

Volume 2:   Full Moon - April 24th 2005   'Full Pink Moon'

On this second release in the series US musician Brad Rose under his artist name 'The North Sea' releases 'Full Pink Moon'.  Brad also runs the Foxy Digitalis and Foxglove labels and a compatriot web site to this at http://www.digitalisindustries.com.

As The North Sea, Brad releases mainly instrumental atmospheric music that incorporates natural sounds.  However Brad also works with a wide range of musicians which can explored if you click here and range from ambient through to strange folk music.

We start here with 'Rose Colored Skies' which has nature and bird song in the background with tentative acoustic folk guitar and a sound like a processed zither playing slow drone melodies over the top.  It's a combination of familiar acoustic music with a distant, distorted aspect.

'Turquoise Skies, My Mistress' is a short unsettling piece that has chaotic notes and melodies in an ominous cacophony.  'Rot and Chime' has a flanged note that drifts like jet engines passing over a metallic nightmarish drone.  'Jefferson' introduces a vocal song which sounds as though it is being beamed through fog, the clarity lost and only a residue of the sound is left.

'These are the trees where we were born' has bird song and steel guitar interacting quietly and sublimely.  Vocals and low electronic notes are woven into the piece which is one of the best vocal pieces The North Sea has done.  The last track on this release is 'Cradle Me In Your Arms' a lovely chiming but simple layered guitar instrumental that has a strong emotional connection.  It reminded me immediately of 'Smokebelch II' by Sabres of Paradise which is high praise indeed.  It's a beautiful piece and brings this excellent mini-release to a close..

Volume 1:   Full Moon - March 25th 2005   'Full Worm Moon'

This first CDr is a single piece called 'Relevation Moon' by Stone Breath.  This brings together a live session of Timothy Renner with Prydwyn (a regular, also of Green Crown) as well as Michael Anderson (who is Drekka) and B'eirth (who is In Gowan Ring) supported by Margie Wienk and Matt Everett on strings. 

It starts with a sustained drone fading into the speakers reminding of Uton or Peter Wright with strings and electronics oscillating and fluctuating .  This part reminds especially of Pauline Oliveros's 'Deep Listening Band' especially when the harmonium starts adding overtones.  Tim's deep sub-baritone then starts to intone, at first seeming part of the instruments, intense with it's 'sun will be dark, stars will be falling' type lyrics. It then moves further into Revelations style imagery and slowly evolves into a deeply intense traditional sounding folk song sung over the drone.  Timothy's vocals have a sermon quality in preacher style complemented by Prydwyn softening this with his counter singing. 

This part of the track incorporates the traditional song 'John The Revelator' which I suspect has deep personal significance for Tim.  He performs like an old time firebrand preacher, surging on the power of the incantation, totally uncompromising and at points sounding quite unsettling in his frenzied calls.

About nine minutes in the drone fades away and the delicate sound of a music box comes in with vibes and glass sounds going from the intimidating song to this rather beautiful bliss of respite.  Because the former testamonial part of the track was so confronting in this part the music sounds all the more soft and welcoming.   It almost seems like a message, to achieve bliss we must understand the pain and effort required, that there are no easy answers.  Somehow the two halves seem bound together and the last half of the track is given over to these simple but lovely musical patterns played on musical percussion.. 

This latter part of the track is highly untypical of recent Tim Renner music and closer to the aural sound pieces of early Mourning Cloak and Stone Breath.  He has come full circle, it's highly effective, unexpected and very welcome as an evolution of his music.

The bonus CDr as Rabbit Eyes 'Hillbilly Noise Maybe' is a real oddity, deeply traditional backwoods USA music played on banjo with singing.  It approaches the minimalism of Tim in his Moth Masque guise where he plays and sings only with banjo.  However the banjo is heavily compressed, playing looping patterns with distortion sparking off it.  The banjo patterns are so regimented they are like Steve Reich's systems music of the 60s or Terry Riley's 'In C'. 

By distorting them they approach a kind of minimalist heavy traditional music, a kind of banjo metal perhaps.  So this sounds simultaneously deeply old, like a 1930s shortwave radio broadcast but also subtly adventurous and experimental.  The music implies it sounds like something old but in fact could never be a product or more than about thirty years ago.    These two halves to the music also link into the two halves of the main piece.

Third track on Rabbit Eyes takes us into pure atmosphere, a log cabin in the woods, a shortwave moving between the AM stations in static, a wind building outside.  Last track 'wild boar in the woods' starts with a middle eastern rhythm of tabla and deep hand drum before the distorted banjo returns.  This mixture obviously brings together two styles of traditional music and confirms this isn't the backwards looking homage that it might at first seem.  It's almost playful and as the rhythm slows down, showing it's electronic origins you can almost feel Tim winking... Hers's to April's full moon and the next installment.

Series Description by Tim Renner: A  3" CDr series from Hand/Eye

Beginning in March 2005 and running through March 2006 DarkHoller we will be releasing a 3" CDr once a month, every month, on the full moon. There will be 100 copies ONLY available for retail sales (via subscription or individual sales). Each CDr will only be available until the following full moon. This series will only be available directly. No distributors, mailorder houses, or stores will be offering them. As we will only be making 100 available of each "moon," we highly recommend SUBSCRIBING to this series. Subscribers will receive a copy of each CDr and will receive bonus CDrs which will not be offered for sale.

Some of the artists scheduled to appear are: Martyn Bates, the does, Fit & Limo, Fulci, Gelatinous Resin, The Goslings, In Gowan Ring, Kawabata Makoto and/or Acid Mothers Temple, Narwhal, The North Sea, Stone Breath, Theory of Abstract Light (5ive-related project), Torche, Tara Vanflower (of Lycia), Mike Vanportfleet (also of Lycia), Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice ... and more!

And yes, you'll notice that there are more artists than moons - some of the above will be bonus CDrs only available to subscribers while some months will feature double moons - subscribers will get both! - others can choose to buy either or both.