It has been a long time since we have heard from 'LM', too long in fact.
'Sun Song' may just be a mere demo, but it shows amazing progress since 2017s debut album 'Nursey Rhymes for the Apocalypse'.
Inspired by, well in LM's words "This is probably not a traditional sun or summer song in any way, shape or form. It came to me one evening at rush hour in Euston Station while waiting for a train home, but I don't think it reflects any of the bustle that surrounded me at the time."
Such a simple basic rhythm builds the tension, added to that a superb double tracking vocal, multi layered backing vocals, this is a slow and brooding example of well crafted Neo-Folk with some very dark lyrics, oh the sun may be bright yet somehow the line "Let it burn" takes on a different meaning.
I look forward to more demos and hopefully a full album in the near future.
Rating 8/10
For Fans Of: Galley Beggar, Comus, Lisa Gerrard, Alison Cotton, The Trees, Helga Pogatschar
02.Helicopter
Quartet - Where Have All The Aliens Gone?
03.Thy
Last Drop – Gravedigger
04.Birthrite
- Loving You (Ain't So Easy)
05.The
Mysterious Freakshow - Hedge Witch
06.Crimson
Clocks – Red Violin
07.Montague
Jacques Fromage - Merde! Mon Dieu! (Absinthe! Sacre Bleu!)
08.Gladstone
– Night Creatures
09.Tom
Slatter - Mother's Been Talking To Ghosts Again
10.Metropolis
– Sirens
11.The
Mechanisms - Riddle of the Sphinx
Volume
II
01.The
Dark Design - Haggard Rider
02.Gurdybird
- Raggle Taggle Gypsy (video edit)
03.Venus
de Vilo - It's My Party - I'll Die If I Want To!
04.Ague -
Fifteen Leagues to Providence
05.Violent
Sky - Frances (In the Gallery of Stars)
06.The
Wattingers - Evil Driving Rain
07.Under
A Banner – Steam
08.Ghostfire
- Griminsky's Soul
09.BB
BlackDog - Steam Punk Junkie
10.New
Jacobin Club - Angel MMXVI
Volume
III
01.Kiss Like
Ether – End Game
02.Gordon
Midgley - The Tell Tale Heart
03.Victor
& the Bully - Every Fight Is A Food Fight For A Cannibal
04.Nathan
Jon Tillett – Eternaeon
05.Heathen
StrangeFellow & the VaudeVille Vagabonds – Masquerade
06.LM
Cooke – Poor Jenny
07.The
Filthy Spectacula - Flying Dutchman
08.Dark
Sinfonia - A Murderous Breath
09.Jessica
Law - The Mermaid's Revenge
10.The
Hare And The Moon - Come Unto The Corn
11.Napier's
Bones - Hand of Glory
12.Feline
& Strange - The City
13.Valentine
Wolfe – Corvidae
14.Krankschaft
- Come Fly With Us
15.Nathaniel
Johnstone - Seven Veils
What
we have here are three limited edition CD-R samplers of the Raising Steam
download albums.
Each
of these comes in a DVD box with a limited edition pin badge, only available
through one of these purchases.
For
your money you also get the code to get the entire downloadable versions
through Bandcamp, giving you access to another ten or so songs per volume.
ALL
monies raised go to the New Futures Nepal charity.
Now
you may of course be wondering what the hell is Steampunk music?
The
short answer is there is no such thing as steampunk music, not as a specific
genre anyway.
What
these samplers show is that anything is possible from classic rock to pop, dark
and twisted gothic horror, folk music and even traditional British music hall.
So why
is it called Steampunk? I hear you shout; my own opinion is that the “Alternative”
approach allows for such freedom that many talented artists are simply drawn to
something which is not locked down in a specific genre.
I
would urge you to investigate if like me you have a wide variety of interests when
it comes to music, perhaps the very name of Steampunk has made you avoid the
music, something which to its shame the wider music press has been guilty of,
thus failing to introduce their readers to some amazing classic rock music!
A few
examples:
From
Volume I, we have some horror tinged music hall comedy from Miss Von
Trapp.The Helicopter Quartet are
clearly emulating one of Karlheinz Stockhausen many experimental compositions.
The
track by Tom Slatter is quite stunning, a mix of light modern progressive rock
with a vocal delivery that seems to mix David Byrne and Syd Barrett.
Finally
Metropolis have a modern Hawkwind vibe with some Tubeway Army thrown in for
good measure.
Up
next a few from Volume II, how about Gurdybird who has mixed tribal drum
rhythms with playing an actual hurdy gurdy!
Venus
de Vilo brings a smile with her incredible dark and twisted mix of Nina Hagan
and Alannis Morrisette.
A
superb mix of seventies hard rock and proto doom Violent Sky are one of the
stand outs here.
Ghostfire
perform some fantastic female fronted acid folk, followed by some bass driven
stoner rock from BB Blackdog.
Last
one is New Jacobin Club, providing some folk tinged acoustic music with a very
powerful vocal.
What
does Volume III kick off with? Kiss Like Ether with some darkwave meets early
industrial and perfectly mixed and delivered.
Up
next is some weird space synth and then Gordon Midgley treats us to seven minutes
of mesmerizing narration of Poe’s classic tale.
Dishing
up some folk horror in the style of Marc Wilkinson (Blood On Satan’s Claw) and
Magnet (The Wicker Man) comes The Hare & The Moon.
Valentine
Wolfe are pure Symphonic Metal and keeping it heavy are Krankschaft (Hawkwind’s
Robert Calvert former backing band) blending Amon Duul II with Hawklords.
Last
up is Nathaniel Johnson whose take on folk rock is reminiscent of The Trees
meeting All About Eve.
Well I
have picked out a few, there really is much more on offer, almost every genre
is represented here.
For
more information, order details and a chance to preview the music go to the
Raising Steam Bandcamp page.
Steven C Davis (Additional Vocals) On ‘(We Stand) Behind
You’ and ‘End of the World’
Say Folk Music to most people and they will instantly think
of bearded men in Arran jumpers singing traditional songs about maidens, death
and ships sailing from port never to return, with one finger in their ear and
the other hand grasping a pint of some awful warm brown liquid that may have
some vague resemblance to a drinkable ale.
But this style of music that originated in the 19th
century has also evolved into sub genres that include progressive rock and even
some styles of extreme metal.
In the late 1960’s a style known as Acid-Folk emerged with
bands such as Comus, Saturnalia and Dulcimer.
Over the last decade this style has found a new generation
to mesmerize with artists as diverse as Galley Beggar, Circulus and Blood
Ceremony.
So now we turn to LM Cooke, one time violinist/ main
songwriter in Broadarrow Jack, then singer/ songwriter with the folk-rock band
Crimson Clocks.
Not only a superb songwriter but a much respected author of dark
fantasy/ science/ mythic fiction novels and short stories.
It now seems we must add multi talented instrumentalist, music
producer, mixer and engineer, as she makes her solo debut.
While there are indeed songs of ships and traditional songs
with new arrangements, there is a wealth of totally original songs with a dark
and twisted edge that mixes the various sub genres of folk to include gothic,
horror, psychedelic and acid in her own style.
We start with ‘Poor Jenny’ a ghost-ship song based on the
story of the English schooner, the Jenny which in 1823 became frozen in an ice
barrier complete with crew. This song was originally written when Miss Cooke
was with Broadarrow Jack.
This updated and rearranged version has some haunting dual
tracked vocals over a simple but highly atmospheric backing, the use of wind
and water samples adds to the overall feel as if you were listening to it by
the seashore.
Next up is ‘Yellow Eyes’ a song about a wolf, or is it I ask
myself, “A wolf in your mind” as the lyric goes brings to mind a hint of Robert
Calvert’s musical interpretation of Hesse’s ‘Steppenwolf’.
Imagine if early Bauhaus had a female vocalist, if you can
then this would be the result, from its near proto industrial drum tracking to
gothic guitar and echo vocals this one blasts through the speakers and then
towards the end turns to pure acid folk. Stunning!
Time for a traditional murder ballad, ‘False Lamkin’, adapted
from the version from Cambridgeshire collected by Cecil Sharp. The song is
sometimes also known as False Lincoln or Long Lamkin, among other names, and
verses vary depending on the version. You may know this if you are a fan of
Steeleye Span, Shirley Collins or Fire+Ice.
Wow beautiful moody vocal over a harp like musical backing,
traditional in its execution yet the clever production makes it modern.
The interlude I shall leave to one side at the moment and
move on to ‘(We Stand) Behind You’. This is a dark and twisted nursery rhyme
warning that not everyone is who they seem. It may start off almost upbeat,
happy with cute sounding instruments but then as this song progresses it gets
darker, twisted, nightmarish, the vocal tracking becomes more unbalanced and
disturbed and the demonic laughs will make you look behind just to make sure
there is nobody standing there.
Maybe it’s just me I don’t think that the ‘Murder Song’ is
about crows, yes they are the lyrical theme but I sense a pagan witchcraft
influence with a group of girls out to lure some poor soul before the crow king
for sacrifice.
One that could be on the soundtrack of ‘Blood On Satan’s
Claw’ or even an outtake from the Comus album ‘First Utterance’, traditional in
delivery it maybe, but this has a catchy almost hypnotic vocal pattern and all
in all creates a creepy horror folk mini epic.
Following on from ‘Yellow Eyes’ is ‘I Know A Place’ it
continues that them of the inner wolf.
Showcasing an impressive vocal range and clever mixing and
production this sounds like a choral quartet, dark harmonies flow through the
speakers whilst the wolf listens intensely.
‘How Do I Know’ seems to be an anthem for the insecure, but
there is also a hidden depth here, after all what if the crazy are really the
sane ones? Is the reference to money really about money, the use of the
“Pounds, Shillings and Pence’ in the lyric could be a nod back to the mid
1960’s where bands like the Pretty Things used the £sd to refer to LSD.
The basic drum pattern follows a similar rhythmic madness of
the 1966 hit ‘They’re Coming To Take Me Away’ by Napoleon XIV. The vocals are
mad, the samples are madder and to cap it all off there is a great “Dr Phibes”
sounding organ.
‘Blackbird Pie’ is perhaps as you might expect a new take on
the 18th century nursery rhyme ‘Sing A Song Of Sixpence’. Miss Cooke
has replaced the naughty boys or the more common blackbirds’ version and then
added a beautiful element of plague and the black death! This is all wrapped up
in a rather pretty little folk tune.
Another interlude, so perhaps I shall take a moment here and
return to the first.
Thing is ‘Summer Is A Coming In’ at just under fifty five
seconds and ‘Winter Is A Coming In’ at just over one minute, for me don’t work
as separate pieces, I can’t help but feel that the opportunity to create one
entire song with the other two seasons added would have worked better with the
overall concept of the album being full songs.
Either that or the fact that both pieces have the same
rhythm, when placed together they flow perfectly.
Pure poetry, perhaps even the moonlit ghost of Jim Morrison?
“the rivers of moon light flow into lagoons
Who dares to impugn her white-faced mis-tune
No song of the spheres is more inopportune”
The ‘Moon Song’ blends classical and folk influences that
act as a perfect backdrop to, as I have already said, “Pure poetry”.
Adapted from the traditional nursery rhyme ‘The North Wind
Doth Blow’, simply titled ‘The North Wind’. Beautiful piano and violin again
give this a more classical feel and right at the end there is some
orchestration that fades away all too quickly, I could have done with another
two minutes of that before the fade out.
In 2010 Miss Cooke wrote a short story called Storm Watch A
Tale Of the Sea, this was published in ‘Tales From The Asylum’ from Last Line
Publishing House.
The song ‘Stormwatch’ is based on that story. As to be
expected this is a lyric heavy piece with a near symphonic accompaniment.
What better way to end than ‘End Of The World’ a perfect
apocalyptic tune, though I feel I should ask ‘Just wearing heels and vintage
pearls?’ but there again why not it is after all the end! With it’s overtones of Edith Piaf this
cabaret-esque finale is almost uplifting in delivery, one may almost think Miss
Cooke is quite looking forward to an impending apocalypse?
So aside from my ‘Interlude’ issue this is a brilliant
album, it draws on folk and classical influences, throws in some gothic
elements and creates an album full of atmosphere. Very well produced, clever
mixing and attention to detail a solo album of some magnitude.
