Crooked Mouth - Between The Fool & The Magician '2023

Tracks list

In January 2022, Crooked Mouth (the neofolk moniker of Canadian musician Ian
Campbell) upended his life and moved across the globe to Lithuania. This was a
culminating step in a long search for creative freedom and a love affair with
the Baltic world that started years before. Campbell took with him a collection
of unfinished songs intended for his next release, and with the help of a cast
of artists met during his travels, he has finally brought it to full
manifestation. The result is “Between The Fool & The Magician,” an
album treading a thin middle path, ruminating about questions with no answers,
and answers to questions you didn’t ask.

Campbell presents his well-known eclectic folk style, honed and imported from
the mountains and coastal forests of Western Canada, in a contemporary old-world
context. Guitar and voice are ambitiously aided by a myriad of instruments
including accordion, harmonium, shruti box, melodium, kanklÄ—s, jaw-harp,
even a birch vanta (a bushel of birch leaves used in a traditional sauna). The
narrative twists between anthemic expressions of gruelling outer circumstances
represented by a hard stone city (Between The Fool & The Magician, Black Madonna
at the Gate of Dawn), and contrasts these with pastoral ballads representing a
secret inner world serving as a refuge from outer turmoil (Repine in Soporific
Fields, They Speak to Us). With an added dose of psychedelic misrule, these deep
introspections find balance and levity through the freedom only found in joyous
chaos. As the sun sets on a European city, an alchemical process begins to take
place in the space of one night. A threshold is passed under a city gate, the
Blackened Mother appears, an outer journey turns inward … and then spirals
outward again.

Joining Crooked Mouth on this journey is a cast of international wyrd-folk
characters. Foremost is English expat Adam Ormes, a kindred spirit also seeking
transformation in strange lands. Ormes lends his hands to percussion, mostly on
a trusty shamanic drum and a variety of atmospheric and sacred percussive
instruments. His voice can be heard on backing vocals and orating the immolating
track Guardian of the Threshold. Swiss-Canadian Æmber adds layers of
resonant cello and her voice to tracks recorded earlier in Canada and carried
over the sea. German neofolk legend ART ABSCONs contributes a swirling,
psychedelic guitar solo to the track Black Madonna at the Gate of Dawn and a
recitation of Rudolf Steiner’s words on the closing track, Sunrise. The
band is also joined by two names well-known in the Lithuanian folk-milieu. The
first is Agota Zdanavičiūtė, also of SEN SVAJA, and a rising star as a
solo artist in her home city of Vilnius, working to popularize the kanklÄ—s,
a traditional instrument of Lithuania and the wider Baltic region. The second is
Virginija Pievos, veteran of the Lithuanian folk-rock group PIEVOS and now a
solo-recording artist in her own right. Virginija and Ian struck up a fast
friendship, and despite having to communicate through translators, have played
several concerts together. Virginija plays flute, a traditional recorder from
her region called a lumzdÄ—lis, and hurdy-gurdy.

Crafted by the band’s new label, Ætheric Recordings, the LP version
will come with several extra elements for a full sensory experience. Including a
unique hand-made incense called Guardian of the Threshold, recommended to be
burned during the playing of the album. 

1.01 - Crooked Mouth - Between The Fool & The Magician (3:52)
1.02 - Crooked Mouth - Repine in Soporific Fields (4:56)
1.03 - Crooked Mouth - Guardian of the Threshold (5:02)
1.04 - Crooked Mouth - Black Madonna At the Gate of Dawn (5:50)
1.05 - Crooked Mouth - They Speak to Us (4:28)
1.06 - Crooked Mouth - Raganų Ratilai (3:43)
1.07 - Crooked Mouth - Arms of the Mountain (6:54)
1.08 - Crooked Mouth - The May Queen's Fading Astral Light (3:54)
1.09 - Crooked Mouth - Sunrise (2:37)

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