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This is Flake - Benign power and sublime beauty. Here he announces and defines himself in mirrored contrast to his brother Flake. He is the Knot breaker, the knot melter, and the dispeller of despondency and darkness.

ABOUT SHADE AND FLAKE

In 2006 I made a white top hat and a black top hat. In the night I woke up, put the hats on in front of the mirror, and out came the two poems “Shade’s Theme” and “Flake’s Theme”. I proceeded to make two costumes, write music for them using my loop machine, and started performing the two pieces in open mics. The poem “The Crystal Joy” followed in 2007 (performed at The Bath Story Telling Circle), but it wasn’t until 2009 that the concept E.P. took shape, and not until 2011 that the prologue and epilogue poems were written and recorded.

The opening piece contains the lines:

From out two hats the brothers crept
to duel upon the life of knots entwined.
So know we well, how through the darkness pass
the tormented writhings of our minds.

and the final piece contains the lines:

You who would the knots of night to make untie
In error do you toil alone.
Our knots shall breaken be, by the medicines of laughter
And melted by the warmth of gentles’ love

Copyright Ash Mandrake 2011

These are reflections from personal experience of struggling through depression, and how the way through it may be simpler than one might imagine at the time.

lyrics

FLAKE’S THEME

Through wisps of cloud, I float in timeless trance.
In the froth of waves, I play till seas fall still.
In snow, I lie and sleep;

For I am Flake.

Two things I say to you:
In the breaking of knots, therein all darkness is dispelled.
Every snow-flake is a tiny cathedral.

And light I am upon the air,
And light I am to earth,
Where here I sit waiting for the tenderness of melting;
Wherein I shall unlock my form and trickle out to sea;

For I am Flake

Copyright Ash Mandrake 2006

credits

from Footprints From A Tribal Id 2012, track released August 5, 2012
The following people were directly involved with this project, and thanks are due:

James King for the recording, mixing and mastering of Flake’s Theme in 2007

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Ash Mandrake UK

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