Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel - download al

Subject: Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel- download
From: the Folk Police
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 07:53 AM

Hello again... more blatant promotion! Mudcatters Suibhne O'Piobaireachd and Rapunzel, AKA Venereum Arvum have an album available for download from Folk Police Recordings. It's called A Pentacle of Pips and is available from our download store, here. All the words are traditional and set to music written by Sean & Rachel, except Robin Sick and Weary where both tune and words are traditional to Scotland.

We hope you will enjoy it!

Cheers,

the Folk Police.

Subject: RE: Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel - download al
From: GUEST,Ghengis
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 09:47 AM

Where can I download it for free? Suibhne O'Piobaireachd wouldn't mind, I'm sure.

Subject: RE: Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel - download al
From: the Folk Police
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 10:01 AM

If you really want it and genuinely can't afford less than £4 for an album, PM me.

Subject: RE: Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel - download al
From: GUEST,Ghengis
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 02:27 PM

Oh, no I can genuinely afford it fine, I just prefer not to pay.

Subject: RE: Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel - download al
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 02:47 PM

It's called A Pentacle of Pips

I resemble that remark!

Subject: RE: Mudcatters SO'P & Rapunzel - download al
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 04:15 AM

Ha! Never thought of it like that - but A Pentacle of Pips existed as a concept as far back as 2002, just we didn't do anything about until last year. Someone did think it was called Pentangle for Pip which would make an interesting sort of covers album, would it not?

Nice that Genghis persists in propagating the myth that I don't believe in paying for music. Might it be worth referring him / her back to the thread to take some time to read what I actually said? Meanwhile, if you want some of my music free, try THIS, which is an album on my own compositions I did with Mike Watson & Richard Rupenus back in 1988 for United Dairies, though what you have here is the 2000 CD reissue on Psychedelic Pig (almost wrote Psychedelic Pip there - again, an interesting album concept...). Everything about this release suggests esoteric happenings: the title, the cover, and the music all recall bloodied altars, unfathomable rituals, and mystical learning... Oo-er. This was recorded in the same studio used by Kathryn Tickell; when we turned up with our collection of crwths, hurdy-gurdies, cellos, bamboo flutes, drums, bells, gongs and other exotic kit the engineer stated confidently that he knew all about folk music. Needless to say at the end of the session he looked decidedly ashen...

21 years on and A Pentacle of Pips isn't without an certain occult aura, albeit one which we feel a good deal more folk-friendly than the above linked album. APoP thrills with the old country lore and truly arcane traditional imagery all exquisitely crafted with weird & wonderful instrumental textures & timbres. Where else could you here a Medieval Welsh Crwth weaving a merry modal dance with the motorik frailing of a 5-string banjo? Much less the bells of The Church of the Holy Ghost in Crowcombe Somerset chiming the changes in consort with the resident & transient wild fowl of Blackpool Zoo? This is your chance to hear something pretty special - even though I say so myself...

There exists in old country lore the notion of apples being magical on account of how should you slice one at the equator, rather than from pole to pole as is the norm, there is revealed a pentacle - a pentacle of pips indeed. Furthermore, two lovers might cut an apple in a such way, and one might inscribe their name in one half, and the other in the other; they then reunite the two halves, whereupon they are bound together and buried at the new moon with a whispered charm, so that as the fruit decays and the moon waxes their love will grow ever stronger. A Pentacle of Pips is a celebration of our love as manifest through the musical compatibility which gave rise to that love in the first place. Here it is let loose from our folk moorings, thus moving into more experimental and spontaneous territories, trusting in the immediacy of our intuition as being mediumistic to something we still might dare think of as being Traditional.

Venereum Arvum - November 2009

To whet yr appetites further, there's a promotional video featuring a unique mix of some of the music (and some of that arcane traditional imagery and crwth & banjo I mentioned above) to give you a flavour of the thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXm7P7TE0Bk