Garden Of Delights
Gurnemanz : Fair Margaret and Sweet William (D,1972+1973,re.2008)***°'+**°
Having heard Gurnemanz's previous reissue from their 1977 album, defining a rather English folk style (in the direction of Spriguns or so if I remember well), I was pretty curious to this new reissue. It seemed to be the earliest recording of this German Rhineland-based band.
In these early years they played English and German ballads and a few 14th to 19th century dances from Ireland, Norway and Finland, all with new arrangements. This is earliest home based recording luckily was made with the help of a good sound technician, who made the best results with the poor equipment and without having a mixing soundboard. The recording was good enough to fill a first LP but without having the finances they only released 50 copies on tape to be sold at gigs. The master tapes were now remastered and reissued for the first time, on CD.
The album itself has a melancholic beauty with more memorable moments, making it sounds closer to some of the Kissing Spell releases (like Stoneangel, Midwinter,..).
The title track is an original interpretation of the ballads of “Fair Margaret and sweet William”. Also included are a circa 1700 English ballad, and a Shakespeare sonnet.
This first song really is a beautiful melancholic and truly memorable song (it is a dramatic and sad story too) accompanied by two acoustic guitars and bass and storytelling by male and mostly female voice (what a beautiful voice this is), singing one by one. After “Schäfertanz” sounding like a Renaissance court dance interpreted by acoustic guitar and lute, “The Riddling Knight” has similar qualities of beautiful dual storytelling and singing and sometimes dual voice, with subtle bass and acoustic guitar, showing the soft qualities of the male vocal contribution too. There is a strong balance and sum of harmonic ideas in the flow of repeated musical themes. “Allemande” is a short old medieval intermezzo with acoustic guitar/lute and flute. After a male led song “Ghost Lover” we hear a short bluesy improvisation on sitar, electric bass and acoustic guitars. On “Upon a summer’s time” Manuella Schmitz voice sounds a bit like the lead singer from Magic Carpet (Alisha Sufit), on this song accompanied by two acoustic guitars and bass only. Very good is also, “To His Love”, sung by male vocals and accompanied by bass and acoustic guitar and flute improvisations mostly, but with an instrumental opening for improvisation for additional sitar and then zither, improvising on a melancholic rhythm, and ending the song strongly with a dual vocal arrangement. This might be the second most memorable song of this album.
The live tracks recorded some time after show the same band and approach, but I have the impression on the home recording there has been done a little bit extra effort in the arrangement, even when sounding close.
A really fine album and sound with a beautiful melancholic consistency for the official album.
Two later released tapes, “Liaze” (1973) and “Sisu” (1974) will be released on next year. Their only LP was reissued some years ago. I unfortunately missed the 1975 recording which only knew a limited run edition.
