Hexvessel on soittanut luonnonmystiikasta ja esoteriasta ammentavaa folk-psykedeliaansa jo toistakymmentä vuotta. Viidennen albuminsa Kindredin julkaisuun valmistatuvan yhtyeen johtaja Mat McNerney laati Rumballe soittolistan, joka vie sosiaalisen eristäytymisen niin sanotusti seuraavalle tasolle.
Soittolista kantaa nimeä Magic Ring – A Hexvessel Forest Mixtape ja McNerney kertoo sen olevan sivilisaatiosta pakenemisen ääniraita. Seikkailu alkaa metsän reunalta ja McNerney on kirjoittanut kappale kappaleelta etenevän tarinan listan kuuntelun kylkeen. Julkaisemme sen poikkeuksellisesti McNerneyn äidinkielellä eli ”kolmannella kotimaisella”.
Laita soittolista soimaan, uppoudu tarinaan ja anna musiikkiin johdattaa.
Magic Ring
A Hexvessel Forest Mixtape
Bug-out and escape from civilisation.
You stand at the edge of a forest. In front of you the mists swirl.
An imperceptible mystery hangs in the air. The woodland is alive with secrets. Behind you, to the south are the lands of men, laid waste with infection and degradation. You head northwards into the wilderness, away from civilisation. Your voyage begins.
1. Vandring – Elds Mark
The sunlight slides small golden knives through the wooden jigsaw of the trees. Shadow and shimmer strobe, while you wind your way through the canopy and deeper along your path. Your heart is filled with optimism and joy. Here you have peace of mind and there are no human beings in sight. Vandring means ”wandering” or ”roaming” in Norwegian. ”A hike”. ”The Norwegians know the ways of the forest”, you think to yourself, as you lose yourself in this progressive folk music sojourn, not from 1967 but 2020!
2. Moondog – Magic Ring
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all. and in the darkness bind them. Moondog was like us on this journey we are a seer like Moondog. A musical voyager, who saw into the worlds within worlds. Some music is a gateway. We let this one be ours as we vanish into the beautiful green cool darkness of the woods. The ring is a portal. We take it and know our burden, and are content.
3. Hilary Woods – Orange Tree
We start to know the trees along the path, we see how far they extend. They stand tall. The trees here rub against each other in the wind and their trunks sing together. It is an ancient song. Like dinosaurs, they are relics of another time, and a world without time. We feel their language, through the sounds of Hilary Woods, as the wood creaks in natural reverb.
4. Shaam Larein – Aurora
Our ascent uphill has begun and heavy walking demands some heavy vibes. Shaam’s bass and heavy droning flood fills our bones with devotion to the old gods. This is a chilling epiphany.
5. Beak> – Brean Down
We come into our stride again and start to trip on the colours of green that move in rhythm to our footsteps. The journey inward grows. The music of Beak isn’t about what you learn from the radio, this is inward music. They say ”the future’s kinda sketchy” and we know what they mean!
6. The Soundcarriers – The Outsider
We are proud outsiders. The sunlight dances and out footfall is un-laboured and easy. We stride through the woods to a defiant and jubilant hymn by The Soundcarriers, the carriers of sound. Filmic, fantastic and authentically psychedelic. Right at the boiling point of Ghost Box Records’s eternal now sound. Highly distinctive production, clearly rooted in the past, but uniquely infused with an otherworldly, woozy, fuzzed-out glow – sunshine groove leads us further.
7. Ashra – Deep Distance
We see a younger Manuel Göttsching, he is sitting in the undergrowth playing synthesizers. He looks just like he did in the 70s. He is smiling and has his eyes closed. He doesn’t even know we are here, in the future, listening to his golden tones as they drip through the ages. We smile and thank Manuel, for what he gave the world of sound. He is one of those few who changed the world for the better through his channeling the currents.
8. Harmonia – Sonnenschein
Sunshine. Goblins and forest sprites march with us in time. Spirits play their ethereal solar sounds and propel us along our way. Harmonia knew how to conjure elementals to take part in their journey, and here we use them to draw a spectral crowd along with us, to the summit, to the apex of our trip.
9. Vig Mihaly – Öreg
”The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Technology has had a destabilizing effect on society, has made life unfulfilling, and has caused widespread psychological suffering”
You reach your vista. Hill, mountain clearing or lake. Here everything becomes vast. The macrocosm. You realise that there is no future for the human race. This is a sad and poignant farewell to everything you have known. All your family and friends will perish and be forgotten in the indifferent chaos of the universe. This is all at once beautiful and moving. You will never return to civilisation.
10. Bill Fay – In Human Hands
”I wanna feel my heels touch something real . . .this world ain’t safe in human hands”
We hold the words of Bill Fay close. We feel secure in the womb of the forest. It wills us onward, it wills us away from human life. It wants us to absorb and be absorbed. To become real again.
11. Dungen – Jakten Genom Skogen
We tun for a while, stretch out our arms and let the rushes, trunks and branches brush our palms. The moss is hollow beneath our feet and it’s soft padding bounces, making drums out of ground-stone. Dungen have perfect nature spell soundtracks, especially this track from the Häxan record.
12. Clipping – Haunting (Intro)
Transmissions from the beyond. Haunted messages from mankind. We tune them out. The world we left behind is no longer important to us.
13. Billy Woods – Spider Hole
”No man of the people I wouldn’t be caught dead with none o’ y’all”
We’re deep underneath a giant oak tree, inside a spider hole. The web glistens and sparkles in silver, and we’re mesmerised. The world of the new universe here is limitless and we are able to transcend time and space and become master of all things. We happily give in to the urge, and cease to exist.
14. Maria W Horn – Fides Minus
Maria W Horn’s evocation of alternate states opens another doorway. Here we are both dead and alive. Our final seconds staring up through the branches at the sky between the pines, we are finally free. We have returned our debt to the cosmic cycle of the universe.
Hexvesselin Kindred ilmestyy 17. huhtikuuta. Levyltä on julkaistu Phaedra-musiikkivideo.