Here's some music for the season as realised by Sedayne & Eleanor's Visceral Tomb 23-25th December 2010 in celebration of the Primal Dark Heart of Winter; freely gifted until January 1st 2011. Two levels of inspiration here - the first is the Medieval Feast of Ass (Asinaria Festa) in which clerics inverted the sacred scheme by way of Ritual Reversal in a veneration of general Misrule, and the second is Eddie Waring, the 15-minute Help Yourself classic from the legendary Christmas at the Patti album as realised by The Manband & Friends at The Patti Pavilion, Swansea, on 19 December 1972.
Rapunzel & Sedayne (aka Venereum Arvum) ~ Purveyors of Songs & Ballads from the English Popular Tradition ~ Rachel McCarron : singing, electric & acoustic guitars & frame-drum
Sean Breadin : singing, kemence, citera, crwth & drones**
We recorded these in the Barley Temple on 1st & 6th December 2010 by way of rehearsal sessions for our gig in Sheffield Robber's Dog Folk Cub on the 11th. So, four songs as two medleys :
The Owld Grye Song (Poor Old Horse)- from the singing of Jim Eldon, as collected at the Appleby Horse Fair. We were singing this together before we ever spoke to each other, so it carries a special charge for us- the very cornerstone of our repertoire these past 11 years and still yielding fresh fruits each time we do it; always different always the same. Harp Song of the Dane Women - Peter Bellamy's setting of the Rudyard Kipling poem which we recorded for the forthcoming The Oak Ash & Thorn Project CD on Folk Police Recordings though we've elvolved it a good deal since, largely on account of ongoing harmonium problems, necessitating that Rachel use her new guitar which gives it a very different feel.
The Gower Wassail - which is well known, finding its way into the revival from the singing of the legendary Phil Tanner, aka The Gower Nightingale; we've tried to go for the traditional al-di choruses, but the revival fol-di creeps in there too - all part of the Folk Process no doubt. Robin Redbreast's Testament - this is less well known, existing in various versions (a fine one is to be found in The Faber Book of Popular Verse which no bookshelf should be without) ; what the source is here I couldn't say although the version here is somewhat edited*. The melodic setting is Rapunzel's and the arrangement fluid enough that it never comes out the same way twice. The instrumental dance interludes are improvised according to the rhymthic modality of the songs; and whilst the crwth is a Northern European bowed-lyre associated with Wales, we're not making any claims to traditional Welshness in using it on The Gower Wassail.
Sedayne, Bill Leader & Rapunzel, Woodbine & Ivy Session, Fairfield Studio, 27th November 2010
* For a complete rendering of this song, check out our albumA Pentacle of Pips(2009) available as a download from Folk Police Recordings, and on CD-R from Reverb Worship. Another version features on our forthcoming Folk Police album Songs from the Barley Temple.
** The drones here are an electronic shruti box and a Korg Kaossilator heard ambiently with respect of the music; all was realised in real time, such as the random twittering towards the end using setting S71 on the Kaossilator.
Sheffield, 11th December
*
And whilst we're on here's last year's version of Gower Wassail with the visuals:
and Sedayne's solo rendering of Harp Song from a couple of years ago:
