Our dearest Concreteweb’s headquarters did recently receive a cd-r / mp3 with seven Folk-oriented albums. As a matter of fact, Strawberry Oracle Promotions will give some renewed attention to seven bands / projects within the Folk scene by having this material put on the foreground again. It deals with both recent as well as pretty old recordings, and in order to give this stuff a boost, I will be so kind to have it reviewed.
This review deals with the 1996/1997-album A Thousand Winters by British formation Orchis. A Thousand Winters was the band’s second album, after The Dancing Sun (1994), which was released as well via Crypthantus, a sub-label of World Serpent. Orchis-frontman Alan John Trench, by the way, was one of World Serpent’s founding people. There was a third studio album, Mandragora, released via Trisol (1999), and the Russian label Brudenia offered the audience the compilation Trait in 2001. Around that period, Orchis was put on hiatus, but they did reform in 2007. First result of the resurrection was a digital EP, Other Days. But that’s another story…
A Thousand Winters was recorded with musician Alan and two female vocalists, Tracy D. Jeffery and Amanda Prouten. The first worked together with Alan in some other projects, like Cunnan or SQE (as session musician). The re-release, in a nice six-panel digi-package with a bronze stamping, was done via Infinite Fog Productions (the only Strawberry Oracle re-issue via this excellent Russian Folk / Ambient / Industrial-label) on December 1st 2009.
Like all other stuff (re-) released via this sampler, this material has nothing to do with ‘Metal’ at all, but again, there must be a specific audience that would probably appreciate it. First of all, the lyrical approach deals with paganism and old sagas and legends about pre-Christian tribes and their belief, and the influence of the Christian religion on Europe’s authentic clans.
Secondly, the musical approach differs from most of the bands / projects on this sampler. It’s not ‘just Hippie-oriented Folk’, but rather esoteric Proto-Neo-Folk alike material dwelling in an enlightening darkened edge of both Psychedelica and Pagan Folk, just like an act as In Gowan Ring. It’s like a mesmerising journey through intra-dimensional spheres of the mind, paying tribute to the forefathers, the ancestors of our raison d’être. This goes way beyond most of the material done via Merlin’s Nose (and therefor I would like to refer to the reviews on other (re) releases provided through Strawberry Oracle, posted very recently or coming up very soon), and the addition of some electric guitars, the beautiful female voices, the thrilling percussions, the ‘traditional’ instruments (like flute; there are even a modest amount of medieval-sounding excerpts), the musical distortions, and last but not least the impressive variety in between the songs, aren’t but surpluses.