Soundtrack to the Faeries (a long post)
Just made a mix CD to complement my deck. I used Roxio’s Toast with Jam program to create crossfades and edit lengths of songs. I also tried to mix up styles to reflect the difference in the fae folk that I saw and tried to follow the different categories that the Faeries are grouped into. Of course, as Macbeth points out, the fae don’t like rigid categorization, so I wasn’t totally strict with this. Here is the CD I came up with.
I began with Clannad “Caislean Oir,” a Gaelic piece with sparse instrumentation and deep chorus vocals that sound almost like a chant, I imagine it as an invocation of the fae. Next I mixed highlights from the three movements to John Adam’s
Light Over Water, a symphony for brass and synthesizer. It is a minimalist piece that is appropriately named, very bright and rippling. I thought this piece wonderfully evoked the Singers of the Realms, ethereal without becoming new-agey soupy. Next, as a transition I put in the opening to Sarah Brightman’s "La Lune," very lunar and spacey, with her sweet unearthly vocals. I moved into an excerpt from “The Host of Seraphim” by Dead Can Dance, which is angelic, but moving into the earthly with a chorus of angel-like vocals.
Next, I mixed into Enya’s “Boadicea” with her humming vocal over her deeper, flowing synthesizers. I see this as getting me into the Sidhe. After that, I slide into “Almost Full Moon” by Enigma, which adds a beat over childlike vocal lines. Back we go into Enya with “Na Laetha Geal Moige” more earthly yet ethereal. Then comes a couple more tracks from Dead Can Dance with bird sounds that bring the feel down to the forests: “Bird” and “The Garden of Zephirus.” Enya, who becomes the voice of the Sidhe in this section, continues with “Ebudae.” I used a lot of Gaelic lyrical pieces, but avoided English lyrics to get a sense of the other world.
“Cantara” and “As the Bell Rings the Maypole” by Dead Can Dance, two pieces with strong beats and mezmerizing melodic lines to me evoke the Faery Guides and Guardians. Next, to add the piping element of the Guides, I moved into “Doina Din Arges” by Zamfir (yes, that’s right, the master of the pan flute himself, who did more than goofy versions of popular music for info-mercial compilations). The pan flute piece mixes into a sweet little melody by Mike Oldfield (the
Tubular Bells guy) called “Cuckoo Song.” I wanted to get in something that was just plain sweet because I think the faeries are capable of that, as long as it is not too much of that
. After this comes a piece by Steve Hackett (former Genesis guitarist) called “Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth & Mustardseed” from his guitar and orchestral CD of musical impressions of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (which, of course, involves faeries). This fades into "Etude," by Mike Oldfield, which was the theme from the movie
The Killing Fields, a very earthy and oddly disturbing piece, perfect for faerie folk.
The move into the Helpline troupe occurs around this point and I mixed into a more ethereal piece by Clannad called “Herne” from their soundtrack to the old Robin Hood series they wrote music for. This mixes into “Ulysses” by Dead Can Dance (what can I say??? DCD just did it for me as faerie music). Back into a sweet and sultry song by Steve Hackett called “Between the Cold Moon & The Earth.” Then the faerie challengers are represented by a pair of pieces by Dead Can Dance, “Towards the Within” and “Yulunga (Spirit Dance)” which have a mid-eastern hypnotic feel to them, but here is where I see the challenge in the music, an internal invitation to enter the realm. To wrap it all up with a feel of Celtic longing and beauty, I finish with Clannad and “Buachaill On Eirne.”
I know this post is long, but I think I wrote it not only to inform you and give you ideas, but to get it into some form in my own mind. The mix runs a good 77 minutes and I am going to experiment with putting it on as I use the deck. I would offer to burn a CD for anyone if this were a legal thing to do, but, not wanting to get myself or Solandia in any trouble, I will avoid publically making that offer.
Peace!
