Cassilda's Song - a bit scary.........

[Ferryman_1957]

I don't know what you will all make of this one. Unlike a lot of the great material on here, this has tons and tons of stuff on it (at least 40 tracks of recording and bounces, ulp) and verges on the pretentious (verges, who am I kidding!). It's taken weeks of faffing around to get it to this stage, I think I have to stop otherwise I will overdub it to death.

I wanted to do something with an ambient feel and by chance I got inspiration from a book I read a long time ago, The King In Yellow. This is an early horror novel written by Robert W. Chambers in 1895 IIRC, apparently it inspired HP Lovecraft. It tells of a play, the "King In Yellow" and how anyone that reads the complete play goes mad. Yes, it's a happy tale. I took a piece of poetry, Cassilda's Song, from the book and adapted it to give me the words. The piece is very dark. I guess I have ambient prog here, because it's certainly rather pretentious in the lyrics but what the heck, I quite like that sort of thing (being an old prog rocker).

It also makes heavy use of the Devil's Interval, something I happened on by chance as I was working on the song and got a bass riff I liked. Jackofall beat me to it and posted about the Devil's Interval while I was working on this.

Anyway, see what you think. It's probably ambient-prog-goth, a first on here? Hopefully you'll see why I like Dragonshade's stuff, as there are some similarities in style.

Cheers,

Nigel

PS It sound best through headphones, and don't have nightmares!

[mr2kewl]

nigel -- absolutly love it!!!

to me it has a blend of BOC and Black Sabbath with twist of Floyd thrown in.

great stuff, nigel!!!

[Pedro]

This is very good, the music and the production. You did a great job, I absolutely love the guitar melody. And the bass line is hypnotizing.

What are you saying in the chorus?

[lg]

This is very deep.
I will have to listen to this many times...
It is going on my mp3 player tonight!
Love it!

LG

[Rata-tat-tat]

Now this is way cool... yes... Floyd, Sabbath, I'm thinking maybe a little Reznor thrown in there. Very good stuff.
 

[knniggits]

Hell of a song! That's quite a vocal perfomance(like to here it a little louder in the mix)reminded me of Bruce Dickinson! Can you post the lyrics?

[Ferryman_1957]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, glad you like it. It is a bit "out there". I may revisit the mix and try to thicken the vox a bit. I don't want to bring them too much out front as I want to keep an eerie feel to it, but they could be a bit clearer.

Here's the words, by Robert W Chambers with additions by me:

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
The shadows lengthen with a bitter cry,
Claw dying tendrils of light from the sky
In Carcosa
Dim Carcosa

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
Strange moons circle through the skies,
Haunted by songs that dark angels sing,
Where flap the tatters of the Yellow King
In Carcosa
Strange Carcosa

Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Dies unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die on this sundered ground,
In Carcosa, all wear madness like a crown
In Carcosa
Lost Carcosa

Dance once more for the King
In Carcosa
Fear the pallid mask and sing
Of Carcosa

Carcosa is an other worldy city that keeps appearing throughout The King In Yellow. The King In Yellow himself is a vague but evil figure that is alluded to but never described in detail (think Cthulu meets the Witch King of Angmar). I was trying to evoke the feel of an eerie, doomed city.

I must stop reading all those fantasy novels!

BTW, the book is available free on line here:
http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/L_KIY.htm

Cheers,

Nigel

[SE]

Absolutley fantastic not usually my thing but I,ve got to say I really enjoyed this one. The production vocal and guitar come together to give us a real treat musically. Would,nt change a thing,I think the vocal has the errie quality you,re after. Once again well done


                                                                      John

[Greeny (No longer active)]

Flipping heck. I had no idea what to expect when I clicked 'play' on this, but it had me listening very intently. I think it's ambitious, left-field, and rather brilliant. There may be a lot of layers, but they all knit together beautifully.

I don't see the Sabbath / Metal influence myself. Yes... the keyboards give it a Floyd'ish 'prog' feel, but it's more aligned with stuff from the early eighties for me. The vocal, in particular, is very 'Psychedelic Furs' to my ears, and there's the dark Sisters of Mercy thing going on...  and maybe a bit of 'Ressurection Joe' by The Cult too on the bass groove.

One last bit of praise - the bass is stunning!

Great stuff!!!! 

[Ferryman_1957]

Thanks for the feedback John and Tim. I'm getting happier with the mix - completed it at 2am this morning so my ears might have been a bit dull.

Tim, there's more of those 80s influences coming out. There's definitely an 80s/goth edge here, so perhaps the genre is 80s-ambient-prog-goth  . I'm playing up the Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs vocalist) angle in my vocals so glad that came across.

Glad you liked the bass - it's actually quite simple but it seems to work. And you can see I've been spending a lot of time on that sound effects site.

Cheers,

Nigel