Artist: Skeleton Mage
Title: Ruinscapes II
Type: EP
Label: Digital / Fiadh Productions
I do things backwards a lot I think sometimes. This is a fine example: I’ve been meaning to check out Skeleton Mage as I’ve seen people highly recommending them, so of course I pick this, a companion EP to the previous album ‘Midwinter Tales’ containing new arrangements of four tracks from that album and now released by the lovely Fiadh Productions. But hey, starting somewhere is the important thing, right?
So if you are new, join me…
‘A Northerly Wind Blows’ has a delightful melody, medieval in touch and delicacy and musing, against a background of, well, to me it sounds and feels like a winds, a rainstorm, on old stone and grasping creepers. Skeleton Mage it is clear, mere moments in, has a beautiful touch for the weaving on the instrumental sounds. It feels like a rippling tidal river with a rocky bed; the tide pulls the water one way and yet the wind blows the top the other and the music created is this amazing, sinuous layered flow.
The rainstorm continues. ‘Dragonrider’ plays like a memory of clearer skies and the musing on what might have been seen by their eyes as the pair travel unguessed miles. The music is quiet and fluid and a bright metallic tinkling sound, perhaps scales fluttering like feathers in the currents of air, dances in memories.
‘A Forest Road’ is a mystery. The music is slow, sedate and gathers close around you as it travels. There is the feeling in the simple synth sounds of the world having shifted, somehow. A new world entered. A sense of shade exists here too, the veil between this world and another thin as the leaves above but so strong with age and beauty that it cocoons you in its arches and knaves. A gentle mystery indeed.
‘Winter Song’ closes this small but perfectly formed EP. A cool, smooth world perhaps awaiting us when the rains cease, or perhaps on from memory. It tingles with little edges of
brittle sound deep in the background as the slow, deep steps press into the snow.
Yes at a little over sixteen minutes this is an unassuming EP but like the best small boxes, open it and there is a the offering of a world of wonder. And even more, so adept and skilful and emotional is the music that it serves as a perfect gateway to this artist too.
I will be purchasing ‘Midwinter Tales’ forthwith and I suggest you listen to this and find yourself drawn into the Skeleton Mage’s world too.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 