I was delighted with the sophisticated elegance of this enchanted realm. As I visited the frozen tundra engulfed in fog on a mountain a mile high in Washington, this soundtrack I heard on my train ride over raced though my mind. The medieval noble knight motif is incorporated into all of the pieces, he is eerie but not evil, and he protects the solace and beauty of this delicate and fragile season. "Redemption" and "Carol of the Bells" are the perfect finale. Guest vocalist Jeff Endemann brings a foreboding comfort to the lullaby "Coventry Carol." Nox Arcana's rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" has been the most interesting I have ever heard to date. The album then takes a turn to celebrating the holiday season. The chain of thoughts then led me to think I was inside a glass ball with a contrived scene inside that you shake and the snow flutters around. I pictured an outdoor mysterious masquerade during "First Snow," and I could just see the night sky lit up by the blue-hued snow. The serene silence of winter is illustrated in "Crystal Forest." This track sounded like crystal and images of falling snow suspended in time. If the music on Winters Knight had visual color, it would definitely be the frost blue of an enigmatic winter in Eastern Europe. I love how this album especially, matches Vargo's famous blue hued illustrations. The different sounds and emotions are threaded together with a gothic motif. I love the sound of the harpsichord, and Nox Arcana did not skimp on the medieval instruments, or the length, with over 60 minutes of music. My favorite track is "Ebonshire." This minstrel piece is a perfect accompaniment of medieval mystique for a journey into the unknown. It was gently raining in the Pacific Northwest and as prehistoric landscapes rolled by, I felt I too was like a knight on a quest of lonely tranquility. I decided to first listen to this CD on a cross-country train ride, I thought it would be fitting. Winter's Knight will take you down that bizarrely distinct trail for the holidays, but Nox Arcana will make the journey well worth your while. On the other hand, if you have heard five billion renditions of "Deck the Halls" in your neighborhood mall, and you long for something a bit more daring, Nox Arcana's Winter's Knight may well be your cup of tea, so to speak.Īs for me, great music attracts me, and I have considerable admiration for talented musicians who are willing to walk a different path. Nox Arcana throws dark shadows across the brightest time of year, and unless you have a solid sense of humor or, at the very least, an open mind and/or a fondness for all things goth, this album will puzzle and perhaps even offend. Most definitely, Winter's Knight is not for everybody. Although these holiday chestnuts once were harbingers of hope and grace, Nox Arcana reworks them to cast the eeriest glow across the haunted landscape, all the while retaining the coolest sort of inner beauty. Most pieces are inspired originals, but more intriguing are the ghostly and ghastly renditions of well-loved carols. The orchestration is elegantly creepy and musically astute these gentlemen know their stuff. This ample album (over an hour of music!) travels through 21 holiday numbers that are unlike anything you have ever heard. Although most pieces are instrumental, there are several sinister vocals to chill the soul. Their intensely creative Winter's Knight takes listeners on a gothic fantasy to the blackest parts of midnight. Nox Arcana is Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski, musical masters of darkness. The carnival and memories of it dissipate come daylight.No, this is not Tim Burton's ghoulish tale about the Pumpkin King-this is royalty of an entirely different sort. I’ll leave all the storyline summations to the etheric wisps of digital rain and turn back to the song itself, which orbits around a titular pipe organ, welcoming us to some nighttime carnival that maybe we’ve never seen before but somehow has always been there.īetween the mournful bells and the constant giggling from an unseen child, Calliope lures and traps us inside its lurid enticements. A recurring and paralyzing nightmare, yes, but one we recall only in the dreaming world. The song hearkens back to their 2006 album Carnival of Lost Souls, which has zero to do with gloriously bonkers late 60s independent horror movie of the same name and is apparently a take on the great Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. So let’s kick things off with Calliope from the dark classical/ambient project Nox Arcana. And we plan to yield to that desire today. After all, there’s nothing like some creepy ambient music to scratch that foreboding nighttime itch. What, no lyrics? You guessed right Hokeyfolks, today we are featuring our first of what will probably be a few instrumentals this year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |