CROW TONGUE: Hoofbeat, Caw, and Thunder

Crow Tongue

Hoofbeat, Caw, and Thunder

© 2007 Crow Tongue (634479707780) (format: CD-R)

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Experimental folk and dronescapes ranging from discordant noise to gentler acoustic based songs.

tracks

1 I
2 II
3 III
4 IV
5 V
6 VI
7 VII
8 VIII
9 IX

notes

On Old Christmas Eve and Old Christmas Day, January 2006, Timothy, Revelator, having had on his mind thoughts of the death of Time; and in his ears and eyes, great gatherings of crows wherever he went; and in his heart his twin children; sat down, put pen to paper, and wrote "Hoofbeat, Caw, & Thunder." In two days' and two nights' time, thoughts and hopes and fears began to spin together like a spider's web, and he produced what is perhaps his most personal work to date. Biblical and personal revelation blend as animist apocrypha is reconciled to Catholic Apocalypse, disappointment to hope, past to future. All these thoughts of ENDING blending with the demise of Stone Breath (Timothy's now defunct band), and the fact that he has not released an album in well over a eighteen months' time, lent this material a sense of urgency and he began to put it to music immediately (perhaps, in his mind, before The End).

With a host of instruments at hand (guitars, banjos, dulcimers, harmonium, lute, and something Timothy calls the motheart), he began to compose songs and drones to marry to his text. Besides bowed strings and blown harmonium reeds, Timothy created drones from field recordings he made of steam engines and whistles from various antique engine shows (another anachronistic interest of Timothy's); as well as recordings of the loudest instrument in the world, the factory steam whistle in York, PA, which is played every Christmas at midnight and heard for many miles around. He recruited friends Sarada, whose silvery vocals have graced many of Timothy's previous albums, and Shane Speal, the King of the Cigar Box Guitar, to help. Sarada sang with Timothy while Shane played a double-necked bass/guitar cigar box and a fretless electric bass.

"Hoofbeat, Caw, & Thunder" was meant to be taken as one piece (though divided into tracks for the convenience of the listener) and the sound weaves elements of Timothy's past with hints at his future musical direction. Not steampunk exactly, but steamdrone and folk (wyrd or otherwise), sometimes with distorted dissonance, and other times in quieter, acoustic lead settings. In this, Time has turned in on itself; where sounds of medieval lutes meet 1970's tube-driven recording equipment, and 1880's steam whistles are sampled, reconstructed, and looped by modern devices. "Hoofbeat, Caw, & Thunder," with sonic leaps back and forth through Time, becomes a meditation on the end of all things, or perhaps of just one man, and on love, and family, and what we leave behind.

9 tracks, 58 minutes.

reviews

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  • An Amazing Piece of Work
    author: Arthur Herrmann

    Renner is revered in the "wyrd folk" and "primitive rock" world for his art work as well as his music, a blend of Appalachian and celtic string band music and electronica. Imagine the Incredible String Band hanging out with Tortoise and Captain Beefheart. A very original vision which creates some of the coolest sounds I have heard in quite a while.

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