brendaclews

Opens with a trumpet call. The swan is gliding over the still water of the river. It is dawn. The sun rises with strings and drums. Such tension in the music, coiled, ready to open, and when the piano begins, it does. We are flowing in a dance of water birds. The water is a thick glass floor and when a plummet is thrown and it dives down and down. There is no end to the depth of this music.

We are brought back to the fingers, nimble playing, the breath, even clear notes. The swans lift out of the water, drops of water falling from their wings, angels rising into the brightening sky.

Flutes, reeds flowing to the music. Those on the banks witnessing the ballet of birds in the water, still, awe.

The Allegreto is restrained and draws its power from its restraint.

There is such joy in the melody. The piano sings, lightly across the keys, deeply in the bass notes.

Trills, lightly, lightly, the swans have become ballet dancers with wings. They are sweeping around and around.

Newness arises with the sunrise, the day opens with Pierre-Marie's Concerto No9. He is ever gentle with us, inspiring us to awake and swim with the day, to sing and dance with the joy of living deep in our hearts.

By Andante, the river flows through plains and vast open spaces. We are in a Surreal land where fairytales turn into operas, where passion fills the landscape. There is magic as the river flows. The dancers have deepened their dance of life to include lonelinesses, moments of quiet communion with what is divine, and all the while a distant trumpets remind us of the strength of our spirits. The piano, as ever, sings its notes, carrying the central voice of the Concerto.

In our metaphor of river music, the piano carries us through rapids, drops, over rocks, through forests, allowing nature in all its beauty to be seen.

Sometimes we are flying over the river, watching our lives progress, watching the widening of our experience as we move slowly towards the ineffable.

Lovers dance quietly in the peaceful but steady dream that this symphonic concerto opens.

Sometimes there is drama, yes, moments, but the overall flow of joy rushes on.

A catchy jazzy rhythm, with rich Classical undertones.

By the end of Andante, the breadth of Pierre-Marie Coedes vision becomes evident.

Dancers like swans fill our imagination.

Allegro begins with almost a jazz beat, distant flamenco, under a sweet, encompassing blend of instruments. The day is steadily revolving with the sun in trills, moments of flight, laughter, pain, togetherness, the echo of all creation communing.

Our ballet dancers are almost doing a slow tango, their wings open behind them as they swirl, bend, bow.

We are nearing the ocean, a regal entry into oneness. All the levels are echoing, singing, trills, notes, repetitions, a choral of complex patterns and pastel overlays, the harsh lines only rise from the depths, pulling the movement together so that it ends with a flourish of delicate piano notes, everything is shimmering, the pulse of life is here, its stunning gift.

Fabulous and brilliant work, Pierre-Marie!

Enjoying it thoroughly! Mysterious, fun, dramatic, full of unexpected depths, and humour, oh I love the laughter. We could all be dancing to this! What pleasure you give with your music, Pierre-Marie!

The delicate pleasure I receive from listening to these carefully wrought tracks... I can't tell you how the music resonates in my ears, giving joy, delight, and wonder at your mastery of the Spanish guitar and the complex works of Tàrrega... and yet these is such intimacy to his compositions, and you play them as if in a small cafe where the acoustics allow the brilliance of your playing to shine. I am particularly enamoured of Track 2, Fantasia su motivi della Traviata. Your timing is amazing... the way the music almost disappears and reappears, speeds up, and slows down again... becomes a small crowd of chords and then single notes... oh, beautiful! The finger work is special too, I think... you're doing something a little different to get the guitar to literally weep sometimes... Recuerdos de la Alhambra is classic, and oh the sweep and clarity of every string resounding with every note, tremolos, so beautiful and fragile, a graceful dance in the air of the music itself, romantic, passionate, delicate, sweet. I'm loving this album, Maurizio!

Thank you very much for sharing. And to Coriandolo for recommending "Musiche di Francisco Tàrrega."

In the second track the Russian artist, Catherine Corelli, sings, "From the hidden depths of you I come…" and we know we are in shadowland, in the world of the black moon, what we've negated, hidden, repressed is returning with fury and grief.

An occult album of secrets. Of madness and sexuality.

Lilith (whose story is told in the album's introduction) is a threatening, powerful archetype of female creativity, power and sexuality, and feared in the dominant male culture of politics and religion (which is falling away, which is falling away at last). The black moon, in astrology between the moon and earth, is always prominent in the charts of creative, powerful women. Catherine Corelli is such a woman.

Lilith is made to suffer for her beauty, strength, passion, fire of creativity. Born equal, equally out of the earth with Adam, she won't bow to her partner, won't surrender herself to become subordinate to him. Faced with his angry resistance, she flees instead. Adam complains to G-d that his wife has gone. Angels are sent to find her and bring her back. She refuses, knowing she has been relegated the hideous task of harming infants for her claim to equality which is seen, by G-d and Adam as insubordination.

This is how the album opens for me. The horror of Lilith's life on on the edge of existence. The infants who must be protected with the names of angels in the amulets they wear. The creativity and sexuality of women that is hidden, cast aside, used. Ladders is a beautiful riff, Catherine's vocals contain much complexity, yet there is horror, too. Lilith knows horror in a way that Eve never does. Lilith is the true and ancient Babylonian Biblical goddess who reigns with the power of unfettered womanhood.

Lilith became queen of the witches through the centuries as her mythology was twisted into demonic proportions by the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. She came to represent unbridled lust, impossible-to-resist seduction, a burning of sensuality, unbridled lust, dangerous sexuality.

I hear all this in the neoclassical-metal of Catherine's voice. The passion, the screams, the tenderness, the horror, the love. Whatever Catherine Corelli has done to train her voice to traverse the range she does in the album, and it is an emotional experience to listen closely, whatever determination to reach beyond her range and still further brings a vision alive to us as we listen with rising indignation, and a fury of understanding in our hearts.

In some of the songs we get the sense that Lilith, in her degradation, the disrespect she received for her powerful creativity, her insistence on equality, is sexually abused. That throughout history perhaps the story of Lilith, the lamia, the whore, the lustful sinner, the one who is disobedient and poses the greatest threat to the dominant order, the succubae, her licentiousness, which is blamed for the death of infants (how outrageous!), perhaps these twisted labels justified the rape of women.

One of the most disturbing, and paradoxical pieces on the album, "amJZZ (HR Giger. Erotomechanics IX Fellation)" reads one way, as a seductive invitation, and yet is sung the opposite way, as a woman who is trapped in something abusive, who has to please her tormenter. It's a double-edged 'come hither'; like the two-tongued serpent she must swallow. She takes on the passion of Lilith, indeed:

i no longer fear.

kitten's noses burn,
your blood pressure's high,
i know all you yearn,
nothing i'll defy.

slide it down my throat...
push it down my throat...
slide it down my throat...
push it down my...
push it down my throat...

that's what i like,
that's what you want.
slide it down my throat,
lemme drink your 'am' jizz...

This is a dangerous, furious album, the dark beauty of Catherine's voice will make you weep, the strength of her scream will echo in your ears, the indignation of the injustice done will leave you shaken with recognition.

In the final song, "Adieu (Coherence Dissolvation)," she leaves Adam, the world of a repressive hegemonic dominance, in the last track, "Listen, you! /What I say’s, adieu! /Fucking… /Listen, you! /What I say’s, adieu! /Adieu!"

She gives us a volcanic album. Of grief, loss, abuse, fury, beauty. Of a woman who is in her creative power, who is on fire with inspiration, who is achieving as an artist a magnificent realization of her vision.

Here is our true Lilith, first woman of creation. Full with occult power. Sexually, sensually, creatively alive. The genius of women. Lilith is not madness but fertile sanity. Mother to us all. Lover of the world.

She rises in consciousness with a perfect title, "Seraphic Tears," written backwards on the album's cover over the sign of the black moon.

Whoever Mike is, and he sounds horrible, truly he does, I enjoyed this album for its bright playing, catchy tunes. In fact, I got up and danced to ''There's a hole, there's a wall,'' and videotaped it: Dance of Gold Canvas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBMrOeDnSzM Thank you!