Wyrd Kalendar

Another release mentioned briefly in passing a day or so ago, whereupon we promised to return to again for a fuller review is the forthcoming Mega Dodo happening ‘Wyrd Kalendar’ (see https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/wyrd-kalendar/ ). Many thanks to John Mega Dodo and in particular, Chris Lambert for sending over both downloads and an advance copy of the ‘Wyrd Kalendar’ tome that accompanies copies of the CD, which incidentally are on limited press – just 100 copies – with all proceeds going to Cancer Research. As said previously, an immaculate set that gathers together thirteen like-minded alchemists operating in the disciplines of folk, psych and hauntology. We take up proceedings courtesy of ‘three day girl’ – a spirit walking mysterio cut n’ carved from the wyrd workbench of Keith Seatman, here ushering you into his trademark displacement portal, a place of eerie enchantment where nothing is real, or is it. It’s classic Seatman fayre played upon a craft with the ability to relocate you in a place you’d rather not be, sharing an impish bewitching with Moon Wiring Club, here falling through, an as were, rabbit hole in a macabre magic land of creeping carousels, ghostly fairgrounds and eerie nursery school play, an unsettling harvesting of shadowy twilight glooms and ne’er do welling apparitions from the beyond. Alison O’Donnell by sharp contrast you might gather, prefers a more earthbound footing, a hymn to nature’s cycle – life, death, rebirth, the ghostly spectral that is ‘deadly nest’ serves as an ode to humble bee, the Queen Bee to be more precise, the accompanying harmonium providing a funereal chill to this head bowing epitaph. I think we owe an apology to Concretism for overlooking his fine full length for Castles in Space earlier in year, herewith ‘the fair by the sea’ which finds him in unusually flighty and lightly toned spirits playfully cutting nostalgic mirages of child hood summers on now abandoned and neglected seaside haunts, part tear stained and subtly haunting, a carnival of Wurlitzer’s, dodgems, ghostly fairgrounds and shocking pink candy floss adore this summery apparition. The much admired Icarus Peel steps up to plate with ‘the weeping will walk’ – like Concretism it finds him stepping outside his skin for an uncharacteristic slice of reflective marooned crooned tear trickled tremble all wonderfully aglow in a mellowing hushed and homely housing. There’s something touchingly drifting n’ dreamy not to mention distractively faraway about Wyrdstone’s ‘the field’, like a moment stepping outside the madness and hysteria of everyday life and into a place casually disconnected that’s safe and serene, its sea faring riff ripples and lilting undulates hinting and nodding to a Vini Reilly fashioning, blissful if you ask me. Not to be outdone in the affection stakes, we do adore the way that the Soulless Party’s ‘dark November drive’ gathers in both density and momentum at each given turn, its widescreen cinematic peeling crystallising with the kind of finite symmetry noticeable on John Carpenter’s ‘lost themes’ set as it spirits along possessed of an sonic aura that wouldn’t look too amiss on labels such as burning witches or spun out of control trailing in its rear view mirror. Wrapping up matters on this very excellent gathering and with the promise of a new album afoot, the Mortlake Bookclub return with ‘Wyrd Kalendar’. A woodland woozy where convene echoes of the past, the lay of the land rising in the twilight apertures, on the cusp of daybreak a dissipating dance of disturbia wearily whispers with Brit folk horror paranoia, a macabre mosaic not unlike those that manifest from the beyond aided by the guiding hand of Melmoth the Wanderer. As said, the collection is accompanied by Chris Lambert’s ‘Wyrd Kalendar’,featuring illustrations by Andy Paciorek, a collection of ghostly prose recanting tales of bewitchment and sorcery from an ancestral past long forgotten yet whose ancient hand still reaches from the shadows to today, captivating and creepy, ‘Santa Claus and the Witch’ providing a perfect open fire yuletide creeper with which to chill a seasonal spirit these days seemingly lost and misplaced in greed and commercialism. https://megadodo.bandcamp.com/album/wyrd-kalendar