Wyrd Kalender January 1st 2019

WYRD KALENDAR
Released by Mega Dodo
Edited and curated by Chris Lambert
Mastered by Chris Sharp
Book written by Chris Lambert
Illustrations and artwork by Andy Paciorek
  Available to buy from January 1^st 2019 from Mega Dodo
CD and digital download

www.mega-dodo.co.uk
www.wyrdkalendar.blogspot.com

All profits from the sale of Wyrd Kalendar will go to Cancer Research UK.

Following the success of “Songs from the Black Meadow” in 2016 Mega Dodo and Chris Lambert are proud to present Wyrd Kalendar, a new Book and CD release.
This will be released on January 1^st the beginning of the next Wyrd year.

Wyrd Kalendar takes the year as its starting point weaving from dark and forgotten traditions stories and music to delight, disturb and escape into.

Artists from the England, Scotland, Ireland and Portugal were each given a month of the year and a story from the book (Wyrd Kalendar) as a starting point from which to create a vastly eclectic and evocative mix of genres that sweep from the worlds of Folk to Electronica via Psychedelic licks and lost Horror Soundtracks.

Each month is presented by a different artist.
January: Widow’s Weeds (lead by Grey Malkin formerly of The Hare and the Moon) give us their occult tinged hymn to that month in Song for January.
February: Electronic wizard Keith Seatman explores the strange world of the Three Day Girl forever doomed to experience the missing days of that truncated month.
March: Psych-Folk singer Emily Jones brings to life the words of her long dead ancestor in Waiting for Spring.
April: Psychedelic Queen of Spring - Crystal Jaqueline plays us all for fools as she goes Chasing the Gowk.
May: Ghost Box’s Beautify Junkyards charm us with their delicious and haunting May Day Eve.
June: Alison O’Donnell of Mellow Candle, Flibbertigibbet, Firefay and United Bible Studies teams up with David Colohan on her wasp celebration Deadly Nest.
July: Scarfolk collaborator and electronic ghost of Cold War Britain Concretismbrings to life A Fair by the Sea.
August: Icarus Peel explores lost love and yearning as he explores the words of the aching and humid The Weeping Will Walk.
September: Legendary Folk Rock duo Tir na nOg encourage us to raise a glass to Autumn with Columbine.
October: Wyrdstone explores the haunting rhythms of harvest in The Field.
November: The Soulless Party leave the Black Meadow to take us for a Dark November Drive.
December: The Rowan Amber Mill explore the darker side of Christmas with The Witch’s Lament.
The Year: The 13^th track of the album is called Wyrd Kalendar. The Mortlake Bookclub explore the world of the book and the year through their unusual aural game of Exquisite Corpse.

About:  Wyrd Kalendar – The Book
Open the Wyrd Kalendar and explore the year with eyes that are not your own…

Join Chris Lambert and Andy Paciorek as they guide you through the twelve months of the year weaving twelve tales of Magic, Murder, Terror, Love and the Wyrd.

Hold to the resolution in January…
Seek to do more with those missing days in February…
Avoid the madness of the March hare…
Become the fool in April…
Dance around Aunt May…
Protect and nurture the June bug…
Celebrate Grotto Day in July…
Fall in love and weep in August…
Let it all fall in September…
Prepare for the October harvest…
Avoid November sin…
Do not let December find you out…

“Gripping, sometimes terrifying but always surprising: this is the year described in the Wyrd Kalendar. Live it if you dare…” – Sebastian Baczkiewicz - Creator of BBC Radio 4’s “Pilgrim”
"There's a story here for all horror tastes, from the understated to the gruesome and everything in between."
"Those with a fondness for horror's rich folk heritage will find plenty to enjoy here, but what's most impressive about Wyrd  Kalendar is how both Lambert and Paciorek have captured the spirit and mood of each month in their storytelling."
"If you like your scare fare laced with imagination, surprise, and plenty of spine-tingling moments, I cannot recommend this enough." - Kieran Fisher - Scream Magazine Issue 49 July/Aug 2018 (pp 94-95)

About:  Songs from the Black Meadow (Released by MegaDodo 2016)
“Songs From The Black Meadow is a deeply involving and atmospherically congruent undertaking, swathed in the beckoning hauntology of the fictitious-or-is-it Black Meadow itself.” – Record Collector
“Here’s a legend for a new kind of perception.” – DME
“Songs From The Black Meadow is a well-realized, immersive concept that will pull you in, and never let you go. It serves as an additional soundtrack for some damn fine horrors, and also stands alone as a weird, supernatural journey all its own.” – forestpunk
“Sometimes frivolous, sometimes chilling, let this be your entrance into one of modern acid folk’s most pervasive myths.” – Goldmine Magazine

Hare and the Moon/Grey Malken Reviews all hold hands hands

A Review for all hold hands and off we go by
Grey Malken/Hare and the Moon (Active Listener 2017)

 

Hampshire artist Keith Seatman beckons us to return to his spooked, analogue world with his fifth album 'All Hold Hands And Off We Go', the follow up to 2015's masterful folk flecked slice of electronic pastoralism 'A Rest Before A Walk'. With a back catalogue of haunted gems as well as being the architect behind the highly recommended Test Transmission mixes, Seatman is quietly cementing a reputation as one of the foremost and most influential of electronic explorers in the inhabited by fellow travelers Belbury Poly, The Advisory Circle and Concretism. 'All Hold Hands And Off We Go' more than cements this; this is possibly Seatman's finest yet and an album which seems to unveil more depth, detail and riches upon each successive encounter.

The brief ominous hum and distant chatter of voice that opens 'A Lighthouse Might Look Long' provides a startling and pleasingly disorientating beginning to proceedings before the driven and urgent synth stomp of 'All Hold Hands And Off We Go' accelerates the listener into a metallic and neon filled dream. Electronic drumbeats propel the whirling strings and twisted carnivalesque keys and chimes; both exhilarating and disconcerting this ably sets out Seatman's stall and leaves some other 'hauntology' or electronica acts seem tame and plodding in comparison. 'Skipping Rope' goes even further down the rabbit hole, a descending synth motif merges with a children’s' song, music boxes and clattering percussion to create a truly spectral and ghost filled vision that begs repeat listening; nightmares have rarely sounded quiet so delicious. Next, 'Mr Metronome' eases the pace to a stately, dystopian glacial grandeur, strings framing vocalist Douglas E Powell's breathtaking performance; fans of John Foxx, should immediately seek this out. Should an alternative soundtrack to Ben Wheatley's 'High Rise' be needed then he need look no further; this is both chilling and addictive. 'Left behind, Lost Or Dropped' screams into view, propelled by insistent keys and increasingly frantic drumbeats, it's melody (as Seatman's seem to) getting under the listener’s skin and into the imagination; this music conjures visuals like almost no other. Next, 'Four Steps At A Time' shrouds its glistening melodies in a cosmic wind, echoes from a past within the present ricocheting and returning around the steady electric beat. Haunting and curiously uplifting, this track exemplifies the layers and careful construction involve din Seatman's mini symphonies, there is so much going on here that repeated listens are ably rewarded. 'Odd In A Nightcap and Cup' posits backwards effects amidst synthetic voices and analogue bleeps and whirrs before an organ harmony plucked straight from some decaying old Hollywood film hovers into view; this music is filled with ghosts. 'Tap Tap' is a foreboding slice of future sock; rasping keyboards and a colossal sounding drums give an indication perhaps of what Black Sabbath might have sounded like in alternate universe had they formed with a battery of Korg synths rather than conventional instruments. 'Boxes With Rhythms In' returns Douglas E Powell to the helm for an album highlight, a shimmering jewel of a song, banks of strings and keys creating a processional march of no small power. The album concludes with 'Of salt And candy', a children’s' nursery rhyme resonating against electronic howls and gusts; an ending befitting the otherworldly nature of what has come before.

This is a masterclass in atmosphere and mood but also in melody and song craft; Seatman has composed an album that lingers long after it has finished, it leaves its own ghosts behind and delightfully so. This is essential listening but don't stop here; seek out Seatman's earlier albums for more treasures. Available now from KS Audio on CD and as a download from Bandcamp
Grey Malken (Hare and the Moon 2017)