Artist: Flickers From The Fen
Title: Coda For Gielinor
Type: EP
Label: Digital / Cassette
After having been properly introduced to the curious and joyful adventure that is Flickers From The Fen’s ‘Stoned In Gielinor’ trilogy it seemed only right that I should have one final little indulgence of the world beneath the strange and rather large hat. And besides what trilogy of note doesn’t deserve a coda to its time?
The question is: Is the ending suitable?
Ah we all know the answer. As the wizard himself frolics and gallivants across the new world we have this little EP as like an echo left behind.
‘Tenant Farmer’ just gently prises open your heart and your smile with the sweetest os rural melodies. It offers sun and the aroma of fresh hay on the air. It is broad in vista but beautifull narrow in its focus. You feel that in all this land it paints you have been offered a sight into one small corner that is just a part of the melody of the countryside.
And then, my ears heard a long forgotten tune from my childhood. I looked at the track listing and what a delight even as all those lyrics came tumbling, slightly jumbled by years, back into my mind as the tune of ‘When A Knight Won His Spurs’ brought the sweet chill of simpler times to me, both my own and the words of the song. No charger have I and no sword by my side yet still to battle and adventure I ride… Music and memories and nascent imagination all spiralling upwards together into the hope of a brighter world. Did I find it? Oh perhaps not, but when you hear this you still think, wistfully, but I did my small part and the day is not quite over yet…
He was genlte and brave, he was gallant and bold…
‘Beaming Beneath The Hat, Pt1’ offers a glimpse as to what might lurk just in the shade of that impressive brim. Sweet flute carries the tune and there is a light of such clear joy shining outwards. It is a fluid, graceful, occasionally swift dance between sunlit trees. Pt 2 is perhaps where we find the hat settling on a log, perhaps, just musing. An unexpected but lovely banjo sound. Playing for no one but themselves though the forest joins in.
The little coda brings us a final surprise with a different interpretation of ‘An Orb In The Sky (Sends The Orcs Awry) with the ‘heady metal mix’. The strange shape of an electric guitar casts an ominous shadow but though its strains are deep, it offers a wink to you and the melody remains intact, just the delightful warm fuzz to the notes, the embrace of yet another part of the world before the electric cousin of the original offers a final hug to all who have adventured in Gielinor, stone or otherwise.
Yes its just a delight, once more. Music to make you smile and coax those emotions show you can’t help but notice how your eyes begin to ache just a little at the corners. It’s not sadness, it is some feeling more complicated and delicate where memory catches the hand of age, where dreams and their reality look each other in the eye and despite their differences find that to hug and hold each other is the most remarkable gift of the human heart.
All this from a man beneath and unnecessarily broad brimmed hat. Can it really be more than happy little ditties full of whimsy? Well those are reason enough to listen but the gift to offer so much more within such an open accessible musical world is gentle glory of the highest. It may be a coda to the first journey but, remarkably, it is also a perfect doorway to enter into the world where Flickers From The Fen sparkle.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 