Percht
Waldteufel : Rauhnacht (Ö,2007)***'
First of all, I noticed the label used a new type of CD : the aluminium part is only 3/4th of the plastic wide, so that some see-trough artwork place is left over, and the CD itself looks much more like an art object and part of the package than in any other format I have seen (see front & back).
The music is a wonderful concept dedicated to some secretilised, celebrative nights. It is as if we’re sitting at a campfire near the woods listening to stories from farway times but which are associated with the actual environment, recalling the true atmosphere of each mentioned event, thus bringing back to live the essence of this with each chapter. Every track easily brings you into the scenery thanks to well fitting sounds and arrangements.
The first scene brings you directly to some imaginable spot, with Tiroler hunting trumpets ? and dogs barking impatiently, mixed with I guess related brass themes. A poem with the theme of the festivities during the day we remember all the dead is narrated, in a way it mystifies the subject, while a meditative saluting brass theme continues and accompanies this. (Each of the texts are translated in the booklet to English as well, so for those who do not understand German, it still is very easy to follow). This is followed by a song with accompanying flutes and slow ritual drumming, with a theme on Frau Holle. Lady Holle is a mystical figure which is remembered in one of Grim’s popular fairytales ; she stood for the accompanying woman during any birth near the water, symbolised by a water pit, but she also like an older, wise woman, is like the instructor or inspector to judge some tasks a woman should be able to handle in order to earn a fertilized life or not. In this case it is this aspect which is sung about. Fortune will wait hose who are willing to do their duty of normal housekeeping well. The ritual percussion continues in tho the next track, very moodily, with extra background arrangements of voice and other sounds, for the accompaniment of another storytelling theme, an old story about a bear which terrified people and lived on Hörsel Mountain. The next song starts, before the accordion and guitar, with another descriptive environmental sound composition, with horse and coach sounds, bringing the listener easily to one other world. This story here is about the Berchta Night, referring to a procession which unfortunately is not known to me. The next track, “Hexe Hild”, with distorted electric guitar and handpercussion and some accordion is a theme about a witch, and, although with a musical accompanying theme on electric guitar, it still is told with the same herd/campfire story-telling energy, the theme brings in some slight horrifying thematical tension. The last scene brings the listener deeper into the night with owls, and rattling sounds (??) (imitating some kind of natural sounds, rhythmically) and such. It is the background for another and also last story…until a small marching band seems to play its way deeper into the forest, concluding perfectly this special album with its own specific sphere.
