Monthly Archives: June 2023

Sharron Kraus – Sing Cuckoo (Summer Is A-Coming In)

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So much has been written about this 13th Century song that there’s not really a lot I can add. It’s a celebration of the excitement you feel when Summer is on its way (so whoever wrote it was clearly not living in Phoenix)

Sharron Kraus is such a figurehead for real, living but slightly dark folk music in the present day that it would have been ridiculous to undertake a project like this and to not at least try asking her to take part. She’s created an incredible series of albums, not to mention some outstanding collaborations like Rusalnaia (her duo with Gillian Chadwick), her trio with Meg Baird & Helena Espvall as well as work with United Bible Studies, Belbury Poly and American author Justin Hopper.

For all her grounding in English folk, she’s created a truly international body of work and when a new album drops, its a major event. Definitely an artist you have to follow on Bandcamp.

Sharron has created a deconstructed, haunting rendition of the song. There’s an air of melancholy, which Sharron explains was caused by the realization that when the song was written, the cuckoo was much more common than today. The British Trust for Ornithology states that since the early eighties, Cuckoo numbers have dropped by 65%. Beautiful and sad at the same time. It’s a wonderful reinvention

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Teleplasmiste – Festival/Mirie It Is

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Let’s be pedantic, and use its original 13th Century name “Mirie It Is While Sumer Llast”. This and “Sumer Is Icumen In” are both rare examples of 13th Century songs that aren’t psalms.

Teleplasmiste is a collaboration between co-founder of Strange Attractor Press, Mark Pilkington (Raagnagrok, Urthona, The Begotten, Luminous Foundation) and Michael J. York (Coil, The Holy Family, The Stargazer’s Assistant, The Utopia Strong, The Witching Tale) who’s also leant his talents to Current 93, Shirley Collins and Ulver among many others.

Aside from their rich musical pedigree, another thing that excited me about asking them was that Mark appeared in the documentary “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched” which planted the seed from which this project grew. Also Strange Attractor Press put out the excellent book “Of Mud and Flame: A Penda’s Fen Sourcebook” which really let me deep dive one of my favorite films.

I felt like Teleplasmiste would be able to do something incredibly radical with the music while at the same time treating it with the greatest respect and reverence.

The result is the longest song on the album, nearly nine minutes long, starting off in a huge swirling abstract whirl of analogue synthesizers and subtle pipes, it builds in intensity before piping out the old refrain in spectacular fashion.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Hawthonn – Lullaby

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Lullaby in the film is a simple harp refrain based around a repeating riff. Not something that would really lend itself to a cover version usually but in the right hands it could be the seed that grows a mighty tree. Hawthonn were definitely the right hands

Raising up in the same West Yorkshire psychedelic scene as the likes of Vibracathedral Orchestra and Ashtray Navigations (for whom Phil of Hawthonn played with on a few recordings), they chart their own distinctive path that recalls how Coil blurred the lines between art and the occult.

While as ethereal as anything Dead Can Dance or Six Organs of Admittance have invoked in a studio and definitely seekers of obscured truths, they bring that no bullshit Yorkshire attitude and would most likely sooner collaborate with Celine Dion than entertain any of that fake edgelord, shit-posting nonsense. They’re real people, not posers in any sense.

I was so excited when they agreed to do this track because I really had no idea where they would go with it. As I suspected, they used the original merely as a launchpad and are as indebted to Paul Giovanni about as much as Chris Corsano is to the first ancestor to hit a bone on some stretched skin.

It’s not so much a cover version, as a righteous evolution.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

United Bible Studies – Procession/Chop Chop

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Although listed as “Procession/Chop Chop” on the score what we have here is firstly the music from the old song “Fause Foodrage”

Since 1968, that tune has been used for the folk song “Willie O Winsbury” , I think it was Sweeneys Men who started it. This has led to some classic recordings from the likes of Pentangle, Anne Briggs, The Owl Service and Meg Baird.

Also included in this piece is the old nursery rhyme “oranges and lemons”.

United Bible Studies are a collective who put out their debut album in 2003 and their line-up is ever changing and evolving.

This time around, UBS was David Colohan (Agitated Radio Pilot, Raising Holy Sparks) who performed at the recent Barbican concert of Wicker Man music, Dom Cooper (The Straw Bear Band, The Owl Service) & Grey Malkin (The Hare & The Moon, Folk Horror Revival, Widow’s Weeds, Embertides) whose poem “Doonie Woods” is read by Linda Hyden at the start of “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched”

They’ve treated the two assembled tracks very differently. The Procession/Willie part is a ghostly, slowed down version that brings the maximum folk horror vibe. For the “Chop Chop” part they’ve taken a more radical, global approach with a lot of Indian classical influences there and even some riff.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Sophie Cooper – Fire Leap

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The Fire Leap is widely credited to Paul Giovanni for both music and lyrics, but surely the lyrics must as least be by Anthony Shaffer and possibly inspired by something he found during his research. It’s a shame neither are around today, there’s so much more to be asked.

Sophie Cooper first emerged on the scene as a beguiling lo-fi singer-songwriter but today is renowned for her wild trombone skills ever since her first collaboration with French musician Delphine Dora on….Was Ist Das?

Since then she has played trombone with Wolf Eyes in Paris and toured the UK and Ireland. She’s gone on to have a piece commissioned by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival that went on to be Ivor Novello nominated, became co-chair of the Oram Trust and created music inspired by Dante for the John Rylands Library.

I couldn’t imagine doing a project like this without getting Sophie involved but which song? I imagined her creating fresh, exciting angles on most of the songs here. It was actually an accident that lead to her doing this song and when I heard the results, it was hard not to think perhaps it was just meant to be.

This version has been arranged for voice and trombone, and while its a faithful arrangement, the change from the high sounds of the flute to the deep, earthy sound of the trombone creates a sinister undertone behind Sophie’s sweet voice. It has the unearthly familiarity of a close friend who suddenly cuts their hair short.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Meg Baird – Willow’s Song

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We can easily all agree that this is the best known and most widely covered song on Wicker Man soundtrack, right? That meant the mission here was big, super big. As soon as I considered this song, I knew I wanted Meg Baird and it was actually kind of a deal breaker. If Meg had said no, I’m not sure I’d have charged ahead with this.

Meg first came to prominence as part of Espers. Espers formed in 2002 and were a major part of the psychedelic folk scene of that era.

She cut an incredible album of covers with her Espers bandmate Helena Espvall and Englush songwriter Sharron Kraus in 2006

Following that, she began making solo albums for Drag City, the latest of which is “Furling” which came out this year

I knew 100% that this was going to be incredible and Meg did not disappoint. Recorded and mixed by Ben Chasny, every time I hear this, I get goosebumps.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

The Owl Service & Harriet Bradshaw – The Tinker of Rye

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Now this song was one of the ones that I had to think hard about. The lyrics for this one seem to be original, while the concept – a tale of a tinker full of innuendo, isn’t (see the Jolly Tinker for instance, though there are some versions of that that ditch the innuendo for actual filth)

The trouble with this one is it seems to have been made specifically for Lee’s baritone and also light opera is not as malleable as folk music. I needed an artist with both an empathy for the material and a proven track record of doing interesting cover versions.

It seemed like The Owl Service were needed. After all, it wouldn’t even be their first tangle with the Wicker Man.

But what really swung it for me was hearing this recent and brilliantly inventive version of the old folk song “She Moved Through The Fair”.

The word came back, I had the Owl Service but it would be a collaboration with new singer-songwriter Harriet Bradshaw. I went and checked her Bandcamp and the feeling was very, very right.

So, while I knew this was a track that probably nobody would want to try and tackle, at the same time I knew it was in a safe pair of hands. The results are, of course, radically different and yet also actually very intuitive and a natural evolution of the song. I’d worried that this was the mission impossible but the crack team from Leigh On Sea took care of it.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Magpahi – May Pole

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The May Pole song is an old folk song known as “The Rambling Bog” or “The Rattlin’ Bog” (very old songs passed on orally often ended up in different versions like a musical version of Chinese whispers/telephone).

Mahpahi is the nom de plume of Alison Cooper, formerly of Twisted Nerve act Sam and the Plants.

She was into this sort of thing long before the rest of us. Here’s her first EP from 2008:

Yet Alison’s connection runs deeper than music as a curator, visual artist and educator, with a deep knowledge of folklore and customs through her work in museums and with the scene-setting Folklore Tapes label. Here’s her 2012 work on Devon folklore

However, those of you who have followed her on social media will notice she’s also been very interested in building synthesizers in recent years. This might explain why her take on the May Pole song has this astonishingly warm synth sound, like the elegiac touch of an old church organ, a very distinctive (to my ears) sound. A distinctly hauntological touch that works fantastically.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Good Shepherd with Maydo Kay – Gently Johnny

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A shortened version of the old folk song “Gently Jonny, My Jingalo” aka “The Fair Made of WIckham”, I never even heard this song until I finally got the extended version of the film in 2006.

Coming to me nearly 15 years later than the rest of the soundtrack makes this song feel really special and it seems perverse that it was cut in the first place.

This was quite an easy one to figure out as I’d been listening to the debut album from Good Shepherd a lot in 2021. It’s called “Let’s See What The East Wind Brings” and is out on Irish label Rusted Rail.

I think you can see from the song above how I made the connection. I wanted someone who could make it even mellower without losing any of its beauty. Mission accomplished!

Andrew Liles – The Landlord’s Daughter

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As I looked at the list of songs, this one definitely caused a lot more consideration that most.

Based on a old song collected by Cecil Sharp (according to a contemporary interview with Paul Giovanni the older version was weirder, possibly referring to “The Hostesses Daughter” which while pretty rude isn’t as bawdy as what Shaffer turned it into), its a bunch of old men singing lewdly about a young woman.

In the film its presented in such a jolly manner and in the old version of the film, you’re left wondering if its all just some crude jokes or are they actually intimately familiar with her? However, the DVD age brought us the longer cut found in Roger Corman’s office and we see Lord Summerisle bringing the young man to Willow.

This context makes us look at this song in a different light. It also made me wonder – “What sort of maniac would actually want to cover this?”

Andrew Liles started out as solo artist at the start of the century putting out CDRs but rose to prominence through his work with Nurse With Wound and Current 93. While still a core part of those acts, he’s continued as a solo artist and also worked with the likes of Faust, The Groundhogs [you HAVE to hear his remix of “Split”], Peter Strickland and Maniac (of Mayhem!).

Liles’ version is very fearless, never flinching from the possible disturbing implications of what lies behind the song. In fact, he amplifies them, creating a genuinely horrifying waltz of madness.