Fursaxa
Alone in the Dark Wood
ATP 2007

01. Intro
02. Lunaria Enters the Blue Lodge
03. Bells of Capistrano
04. Drinking Wine in Yarrow
05. Black Haw
06. Clé Elum
07. Alone in the Dark Wood
08. Nawne Ye
09. Sheds Her Skin
10. In the Hollow Mink Shoal
11. Rattling the Calabash
12. Birds Inspire Epic Bards
13. Of Tubal Cain

Fursaxa's 5th full-length begins with a vertiginous howl, the lead-off track, a sort of dopplered drop hurtling the listener through altered voice and sound. It only lasts 16 seconds, but it's enough to transport you into a wholly separate space, which is where you'll stay for the duration of this haunted medieval abbey of an album. These 13 compositions slip dreamily, one into the other, their spidery taut guitars melting into lush atmospheric plain song, weird pennywhistles winding into arabesques of organ overtones. There's hardly a distinguishable word on the album, yet the message is unmistakeable. This is music as timeless, shapeless and all-embracing as life itself. If you breathe it, you'll get dizzy. -Popmatters

>> gsize / fsend (67mb)
>> love it, buy it (Smallfish)

Yes, yes, finally - my own precious CD version for you greedy lot. Revisiting some themes that had arisen on the gorgeous Myriad of Satyrids and adding extra depth/dimension. Actually, reading what I wrote back then, on New Year's, you'll see I have sensed this album's spirit rather well. Fursaxa isn't lost or scared of woods - she simply is a mystic. Her music simply needs abandonment while asking for devotion, entrenched in lores of sacred and hypnotic realms. Shit you not, when her voice reaches lower ranges, your mind will start to free up and your conscience disconnect. For me, it often unluckily connects with the urge for beer and cigarettes. Luckily for you, there's also a vinyl edition out that should be absolutely grabbed.