Get all 41 Louisa John-Krol releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lula - songs from girlhood, Big Stream - Yes23, Human Lovers, Gwyllion, a Welsh crone (bonus), Numb the Wren Tear - single, Another Rosewheel - free single, never on CD, Antiquity, The Faerietale Woman by Fionvarra 1990. Free, and 33 more.
1. |
Alexandria
05:29
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One more day away from Alexandria
And night is long to sail -
Rolling in a slow procession moved a place,
A city fair and strange.
Send the felon winds and every gust of wings
Toward Bayona's Hold
Over tides of dark I'll ever know your love
An uncrowned whitethorn blown:
“Fame isn't mortal,
nor does it lie in rumour, nor in your pride
But in the Laurel you'll reign afar
And in the Silence of you
in your rain, in your garden, in the sun on the rill
in Alexandria.”
As one so long prepared you'll hear the midnight voices,
Don't you mourn them now!
Don't betray your hope, and say goodbye to her -
Your Alexandria.
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2. |
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Out on the colder mornings, through a city of red snow
Over the arc of reason you can't tell it whole no, no
Contradiction is the Dragon, fly off with the crow!
Blackbirds scurry through the snow -
windows crack 'n' groan.
Fly over the fortress,
Gleam under the rook
Your eyes are the roaming soul of air
Climb the stair, climb the stair of you!
Sure as cities crumble under seven seas,
fall over my life
As I gaze into your face - there I see the Dragon
Contradiction is the Dragon, fly off with the crow!
Blackbirds scurry through the snow
windows crack 'n' groan
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3. |
Hide In Your Shadow
04:56
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Wind blows through branches of lost Time
sleep forms foam rising to ashes.
And as you dance, your hair is on fire
tripping, falling, slipping into the ice Moon:
in the light of the Sun, hide in your Shadow
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4. |
Fortress
05:49
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In your boudoir you've been hiding,
Lady in the Fortress
hiding yourself from the fog -
mist will reach you
it'll creep through cracks o' windows,
climb the stairways of your mind
Ah mist will reach you, mist will reach you
Mist will call you, mist will call you
Mist will haunt you, mist will haunt you
In your chamber, TV laughing
Lady in the Fortress
Alchemy is dangerous
shooting arrows, you're shooting arrows
shooting from your Fortress, shooting arrows in the mist
ah but mist will reach you mist is closing in on you,
mist will move you, under doorways of your soul
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5. |
Talim Ridge
02:01
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Moon on Talim Ridge,
Six in red and One rhyme!
Flying Guardians, tails in the Air
were feeding the pine-cones.
Four hats rimmed in green
Three in paper-bag brown -
on the Other Side in a Valley far from here
moved with the clouds.
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6. |
Belarmino's Dictionary
02:54
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but to see them on the pavement or the air drift
on nameless mist... to the ceiling or the stair,
out of cages, birds fly south into the Sun
dusty pages, hand an' mind fall into one:
Fall into one,
come in the dark cave where the light is far better than here!
fall into one, fear in your palm where the line is
a word they can't hear
fall into one, Belarmino, Belarmino …
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7. |
Paper Door
04:31
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And Dostoyevsky is waiting, humming
Beside the meadow green,
He's been there a million years
Telling tales to wandering ghosts -
And how in this world of Fate
Hope feeds our homes?
The Paper Door it swings away, and
I have fallen into Moontalk...
And Dostoyevsky is waiting for you
Beside the meadow green,
He's been waiting there a million years!
Waiting with his crew -
And now on the heron ground
The flying Paper Door!
The Fool leaps into the mire
It's a wilderness of mirrors in Time ...
And how in this world of Fate
Hope feeds our homes?
The Paper Door it swings away, and
I have fallen into Moontalk ...
Seems like whirling and the ordinary life is gone!
It's gone and you Step into the Other World of feeling,
The Paper Door it swings away, and
I have fallen into Moontalk.
The Fool leaps into the mire
The ordinary life is gone
The Fool leaps into the mire
It's a Wilderness of Mirrors in Time
The Paper Door it swings away,
Wings away, onward and far
Wings away and away ...
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8. |
Ariel's Flight
03:51
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Instrumental
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9. |
The Valley Of Seven Keys
06:21
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I dreamed of a Statue
I dreamed of a Garden that hadn't a key
I dreamed of a Play - in a tree
I heard Someone say
I heard Something whisper from beyond the grave
I heard of a Name - in a cave
‘You'd better take this key’, said the man in the Valley of Seven Keys
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10. |
Madame Alchemier
06:50
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Last night a van with a clown on its back
took a one-man show down a windy road.
He's heading down to a woman I know -
and the saddest of places I used to go:
Rows of books would line the walls,
paper souls she had in store,
voices lurking in the hall, crying –
'Poetry's gone to Hell!'
and the turnover's not what it used to be
and the paint's been peeling for years –
But there's a snow-cat in the window,
and a card of the pier -
'Won't you come down the stair and try my wares?'
said Madame Alchemier -
‘Well maybe they don't want you,
and maybe they can't hear?
and maybe they don't want you’
said Madame Alchemier.
Out on the Boulevard sequins abound
in another Circus of Charisma.
One more festival glittering past -
If they want something, they'll come to me...
No more writers want to read,
No more talkers want to hear,
No more painters want to see
Looks like Poetry's gone to hell!
And the turnover's not what it used to be,
And the paint's been peeling for years –
But there’s a snow-cat in the window…
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11. |
Canto IV
03:46
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Instrumental
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12. |
The Last Centaur
04:19
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It was the dawning of Fifteen Hundred
and all my village was at the fair -
I’d bought me a spindle an’ bread an’ spice
and peddled my garlands for ladies’ hair.
I’d rounded the stage of a troupe of players,
drawn by the shape of a stranger thing:
from ground to torso a mighty stallion,
waist to head t’was a man!
“Hush now, tell not a soul!
Things of my kind are fading...”
He told that there was no stronger army
than the sweep of a changing thought.
He lowered his eyes and he smote the turf
and waved a forehoof across the air -
as if to say we had done him wrong,
or was it a warning of things to come?
“Lines are already drawn,
this world will be sundered in two
And from now on you will only meet me
champing the path of your dreams.”
T’was then that I saw he had cast no shadow
and not a soul seemed to notice him -
I thought I caught sight of a tear escaping
as he had turned and his form had dimmed:
“Go!” cried he, “Go like the wind,
five hundred years are grumbling”
and like the sound of iron on stone,
his plunging hooves were gone.
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13. |
Death's Illusions
05:34
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This One asking that I die ... telling me to fly
charming a million souls
calling me to roam
screaming 'on your knees!'
dying to appease, asking that I die ... telling me to fly
Death’s illusions
scatter like metaphors of confusion
convictions of meaning
create a geography of dreaming
am I this summer descended in rain?
am the eagle? am I this grace?
am I oblivion they call my name?
am I this song falling in flame?
Death’s illusions ... (etc, ibid)
am I the thunder lost in a trance,
or resolutions caught by demands?
am I the memory of someone’s face?
am I question lost in a daze?
am I a dogma or am I a poem?
beyond your ken is my soul free to go?
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14. |
Gwyllion
03:58
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Stony is her stair
where brambles grow;
Ponies wild and fair
would pass by Gwyllion
Lonely is her lair
where horsemen lie;
Eyes behind her hair
is waiting Gwyllion:
Dilly-bag bounty, carry the brain
Billy or Tamlin - what was your name?
Tig Tag Toe, and wouldn’t you know?
Nimble my ride to ramble row!
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15. |
||||
One more day away from Alexandria
And night is long to sail -
Rolling in a slow procession moved a place,
A city fair and strange.
Send the felon winds and every gust of wings
Toward Bayona's Hold
Over tides of dark I'll ever know your love
An uncrowned whitethorn blown:
“Fame isn't mortal,
nor does it lie in rumour, nor in your pride
But in the Laurel you'll reign afar
And in the Silence of you
in your rain, in your garden, in the sun on the rill
in Alexandria.”
As one so long prepared you'll hear the midnight voices,
Don't you mourn them now!
Don't betray your hope, and say goodbye to her -
Your Alexandria.
|
Louisa John-Krol Australia
Louisa is an Australian singer, composer, writer & faery storyteller who has released many albums of ethereal music on indie labels, primarily in France. She's completing a fantasy series, The Elderbrook Chronicles, with a soundtrack.
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