Nature & Organisation : A Dozen Summers Against The World
Nature & Organisation : A Dozen Summers Against The World
A short EP, mainly featuring three stand-out tracks from their full-length (“Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude”) and the extended title track, “A Dozen Summers…” is an excellent summary of the musical genius of Michael Cashmore. The “Wicker Man Song” starts this EP on a high note, featuring a delicate folk-tinged composition, aided by Rose McDowell on vocals, and a variety of orchestral insturmentation to assist the several guitar and mandolin melodies simultaneously intertwining throughout the mix (including flute, cello, and bassoon). “Blood Of Solitude I” and “II” are two short interludes, featuring a sad violin solo, accompanied by cello and bassoon. Both are relatively similar, except where the first song gives off a somber vibe, the second is decidedly more melancholic (admittedly these are very subtle differences, yet they do exist). Finally, we arrive at the epic title track: the eleven-minute “A Dozen Winters Of Loneliness”. Featuring a repeated vocal motif (“loneliness”) spoken by an female speaker identified only as “Oriental girl” (somehow managing to be sublimely creepy and moving at the same time) and spoken lyrics by David Tibet, Michael Cashmore plays the rest of the insturments on the song, ranging from acoustic/electric guitars, keyboards, tubular bells, and glockenspiel. The song continues to expand majestically for about seven minutes, until only the repeated vocal returns, at which a jarring cacaphony of highly distorted guitar and drum soloing crashes into the forefront, continuing for five minutes before finally fading back to give the final line: “A dozen Winters of Loneliness, and the dozen summers against the world”.
Although only nineteen minutes long, the four songs here exhibit an unnaturally high degree of musical beauty, and listening to this makes it quickly clear the high degree of influence Cashmore has had on David Tibet’s Current 93 project since being introduced as a collaborator. This EP (along with the LP “Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude”) are both highly reccomended works of “orchestral neo-folk”.
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John Lithium 