about
SHADE'S THEME
This track is probably as dark as it gets. This is "Shade" brother and antithesis of "Flake". He is malice and despair. The maker of knots.
In this track he announces and defines himself in preparation for his battle with flake in the next track "Knot Duel". This is the sister track to "Flake's Theme"used as
The sound scape for this piece includes the use of a piano, with strings blocked off, so that it could be played like a zither, as well as using the strings sounding sympathetically when it was banged, hit and scraped, as well as sung into.
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
SHADE’S THEME
In darkness lurk all creeping forms.
From shadows stare unlidded eyes.
In absence find my mark;
For I am Shade.
Two things I tell to thee:
In the tieing of knots, therein my children are conceived.
In the simple black of night, there emptiness resides.
And darkness weighs like lead inside my boots.
To earth I say!
To hidden places send a shudder
Such as would crack the rock of caves and wake the dead.
For I am Shade!
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:
Paul Nocher for the loan of a recording system and Mic
Adam at The Percy Community Centre for use of a room for recording
James King for the recording and mixing of Flake’s Theme in 2007
Sprog for mastering.
license
all rights reserved
