A Closer Listen
Imagine receiving a wooden box in the mail, stamped with a branding iron, with letters stained in wine. Inside the box, a bottle and a tape, nestled in soft sponges that look like burnt orange coral. The contents build a bridge across the seasons: music to soothe the mind, an apéritif wine to relax the body. The leaves are only beginning to turn, an occasional early victim falling from the tree. We cling to summer as long as possible; The Angels In These Fields teaches us to let go.
The wine sits in the glass, grateful to be breathing, exhilarated at the contact with the afternoon air. Hints of cranberry and pepper waft from the crystal. The light chill of the breeze is matched by that of the glass. There is breath in the music as well, late in the opening side, that of Lynn Fister (Farewell Phoenix), sheparding the listener across a double bridge of mind and earth. This is the fall release from Ceremony of Seasons, in conjunction with VISUALS WINE: a continuation of the Ritual of Senses Wine Club, Abstractions of Earth division.
And now that first sip: sweet, sparkling, bursting with notes of cherry and brambleberry. The artist, working in conjunction with VISUALS Wine, has chosen rose, Hawthorne, black tea, cardamon and anise infusions. The Hawthorne berry is also used to make jelly and tea, cardamom in teas, coffees and curries. Anise donates an undercurrent of licorice. All are said to have beneficial properties. A new book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, confirms what we have always known: that music does as well. The body and mind are being nourished, and now through the combination of senses, the spirit as well. Earth is still tumbling a little farther from the sun, but we are noticing it less.
The “Rebirthday” that leads off the album is a reminder that all things come around. There is a strange value to be found in the bittersweet end to a beloved season. A light rain falls over a soft drone. Then the album’s centerpiece, the daring, 20-minute title suite. Fister’s wordless voice is akin to the ineffable feeling of light disconnection that one begins to feel as the wine takes effect. The opening segment, “The Fall: An Offering of Forgotten Hymn,” mirrors the title of the wine. One cannot help but think the forgotten hymn is autumn, now remembered, not yet embraced. The piece changes slowly, imitating the brushes of color revealed on the leaves as they remain on the trees. A beat develops in “A Siren in the Wind, in the Trees,” like the inexorable march of October. But then as wind chimes twinkle and the beats wind down, the aforementioned breath and the sound of birds. The migration has not yet begun, but in the treetops, the discussion has started. Fister plays a xylophone lullaby as the side ends.
Side B is a different, darker beast, at times suggesting Halloween. The multi-instrumentalist introduces new electronic timbres that sound like destruction: more akin to forest fires than falling leaves. Again there arrives a short introduction, as “Requiem, Death in a Field” foreshadows the rest. “Weaving a Blanket to Warm Your Dreams” starts like a serenade before turning nearly industrial. The glitches sound like a bonfire or the static that emerges as one drives out of range of a radio station, trying to hold on, to drink in the last lines of a beloved song, like the last dregs of a sweet apéritif wine. Soon one will be forced to change stations, and will discover that the next offers its own pleasures; the metaphor also applies to the transition between summer and fall.
As Fister sings over “The Ritual of Ruin,” we recall that the equinox is often honored with ceremony and song, a tradition abandoned by many modern communities, to their spiritual detriment. As Fister channels Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance), the beats resurface like ancient drums. “Spectre Halo” is marked by another sound of deterioration, like the glitch of a dying CD. Again one holds on as long as possible, leaning in to hear the music as it dies, just as one ventures outside one last day in shorts and a t-shirt, never knowing when it will be the final day. The entire Ceremony of Seasons series, now in its third year, finds strength in nature’s cycles. The glass is empty. The tape is over. The season has ended. All will be renewed. (Richard Allen)
Sun Sep 22 00:01:27 GMT 2024