Spellewauerynsherde

Spellewauerynsherde Akira Rabelais 1) 1382 Wyclif Gen. ii. 7 And spiride in to the face of hym an entre of breth of lijf. 2) 1390 Gower Conf. II. 20 I can noght thanne unethes spelle that I wende altherbest have rad. 3) 1440 Promp. Parv. 518/2 Wawyn, or waueryn, yn a myry totyr, oscillo. 4) 1483 Caxton Golden Leg. 208 b/2 He put not away the wodenes of his flessh with a sherde or shelle. 5) 1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 125 Within which draw an other Circle, a finger bredth distant. 6) (Gorgeous curves lovely fragments labyrinthed on occasions entwined charms, a few stories at any longer sworn to gathered from a guileless angel and the hilt edges of old hearts, if they do in the guilt of deep despondency.) 7) 1671 Milton Samson 1122 Add thy Spear, a Weavers beam, and seven-times-folded shield. Spellwaveringshard, LP version released on Boomkat 2017 PARIS TRANSATLANTIC In case you’re wondering how that title should be pronounced, try “spell wavering shard“ – Texas-born laptop whizkid Akira Rabelais’ fondness for Middle English is also apparent in the titles of the album’s seven tracks, each of which originates in definitions culled from the Oxford English Dictionary, which he describes as one of his favourite books. “1382 Wyclif. Gen. ii.7“ (track one) refers to the year in which John Wyclif, who was responsible for the first complete version of both Old and New Testament in English, was excommunicated, and its full title incorporates a quotation from the Book of Genesis. The “Glower“ of track two (as printed on the CD sleeve: “1390 Glower Conf. “) should in fact be “Gower“, referring as it does to the poet John Gower, whose Confessio Amantis was one of the first epic poems in Middle English. “Promp. Parv.“ (track three, “1440 Promp. Parv. 518/20) is the standard abbreviation for Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum, lexicon Anglo-latinum princeps, one of the first important Latin / English lexicons dating from, yes, 1440. 1483 (track four, “1483 Caxton Golden Leg. 208b/2“) was the year printer William Caxton published the first English version of Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend or The Lives of the Saints. 1559 was the year of publication of William Cuningham’s The Cosmographical Glasse, a treatise on mathematical methods for depicting the universe, hence “1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 125“. After the sixth track, which revels in the name “(Gorgeous curves lovely fragments labyrinthed on occasions entwined charms, a few stories at any longer swrn to gathered from a guileless angel and the hilt edges of old hearts, if they do in the guilt of deep despondency)“ – actually a pretty good description of what goes on in the piece –, the final “1671 Milton Samson 1122“ refers to Milton’s Samson Agonistes, published in 1671 in a volume also containing the four books of Paradise Regain’d. The quotation “add thy Spear / A Weavers beam, and seven-times-folded shield“ indeed comes from line 1122. On the opening track a single vocal line slips gently into a kind of canonic imitation of itself as a cloud of reverberant resonance drifts in from afar. It’s alarmingly simple and direct, yet headscratchingly complex at the same time – try humming along and see if you can manage it. “1390 Glower Conf. II. 20“ is, at least at the outset, more straightforward, but Rabelais’ filters work in mysterious ways, giving the illusion that time is slowing down, and erasing memory along the way. This curious and unnerving sensation continues in the third track “1440 Promp. Parv. 518/20“, and on the centrepiece of the album, the 21-minute “1483 Caxton Golden Leg. 208b/2“, time seems to grind to a halt altogether, the voices gathering into an eerie microtonal cloud that recalls the Ligeti choral music (“Requiem“ and “Lux Aeterna“) used to such memorable effect in 2001 – and Rabelais’ music is every bit as mysterious and beautiful as Kubrick’s inscrutable black obelisk. After this, the simplicity of the brief (44 second) “1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 125“ is a masterly touch, clearing the air perfectly for track six, the most melodically and harmonically daring of Rabelais’ “seven sisters“, in which his treatments dimple the surface of the music with wider, more expressive intervals. The closing “1671 Milton Samson 1122“, apart from a brief reprise of the song that had featured in track two (transposed a semitone down, and not the same recording, apparently), floats inside the reverb cloud. Real or imaginary, clear or confusing, mundane or ethereal, ancient nightmare or modern dream, Spellwauerynsherde is one of the most original and beautiful musical works of recent times. DW