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Alexandria - full album 1998

by Louisa John-Krol

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1.
Alexandria 05:29
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. 
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Fortress 05:49
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
5.
Talim Ridge 02:01
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.
6.
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 …
7.
Paper Door 04:31
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 ...
8.
Instrumental
9.
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
10.
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…
11.
Canto IV 03:46
Instrumental
12.
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.
13.
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?
14.
Gwyllion 03:58
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!
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. 

about

Our second CD Alexandria continues the adventures of Argo, expanding on themes of exile. Aspiring to dignity in an epoch where fame equates with immortality - or at least legitimacy - is a guiding aim, nourished by ideas gleaned from many muses.

To a city fair and strange we sailed. From the Argo we disembarked. Hyperion (Jason) beheld a great city; he stood upon the wall between dream and madness. In the bookshop of Madame Alchemier, who opened the Door of the Book, Hyperion plunged headlong into Exile ... and the hidden circle of Alexandria. For there is a Magic Theatre, on the Other Side of Time.

Alexandria has 3 editions: 1998 Blue Tree, Australia; 1999 Hyperium Records, Germany, with a green lily on its cover; and, a decade later, Forest of the Fae, America: a 10-year Anniversary Collector's Edition, reverting to the original cover + 2 bonus tracks. Here at Bandcamp I've added an extra rarity: an acoustic version of the title-track recorded in France during a 2003 tour.

‘Into this port if I might come,
Rebecca to Jerusalem
Would not so ravished turn,
Nor Persian, baffled at her shrine,
Lift such a Cruxifixal sign
To her imperial Sun.’

- Emily Dickinson: ‘He touched me, so I live to know’

credits

released February 4, 2021

Music & Lyrics by Louisa John-Krol & Mark Krol, with Harry Williamson at Spring Studio, Australia, 1990s. Cover art by Australian Creative Expressionist Karan Wicks; her influences include Surrealism, Frida Kahlo and faerie tales.

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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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