Nel loro terzo ed ultimo disco (datato 2004) i minnesotani Skye Klad (da non confondere con Skyclad) mantengono un equilibrio tra immaginario biblico e occulterie folk noir e dilatazioni psichedeliche che possono rimandare a degli Spacemen 3 meno abrasivi quanto a jam comunarde anni 70, un suono a suo agio nell’estetica di casa Darkholler Hand/Eye. Skye Klad plays The Musick of Cupid’s Orkustra Asleep Within the Magick Powerhouse of Oz (tra i titoli e l’artwork di TiMOTHy Renner non ci sarebbe nulla da aggiungere) parte con ballate chitarristiche un po’ Of the Wand and the Moon cantate con tenebrosità blues caveiana ("the arms of Christ are the Cross of Lorraine"), per poi rapidamente tuffarsi in cavalcate notturne in cui dietro alle pennate di acustica e alle percussioni rituali nuotano -e progressivamente emergono- una serie di feedback flautati (Fleeting Faunus), suoni boschivi, onde sinusoidali (Beyond the Ice and Storm), echi e spettri. Incastonata nel mezzo la messa in canzone di The Sleeper di E.A. Poe propone una ripartenza, e ripartenza sia: dalla carica cornuta di Wildes Heer di nuovo nella selva fuori e dentro, a ballare intorno al fuoco con driadi e satiri, fino alla chiusa ultraflangerizzata che preconizza una inevitabile indicibile calata da nord.

Niente male anche Conspiracy of the Gods

We reached lovely Autumn Grieve via mail for a short interview, and between questions and answers she was moving to her new home in Brighton. While her body is often Earth travelling, her soul, as expressed by the core of her music, seems to be firm, a bit like Anne Briggs.

Autumn: Yes indeed I am always on the move… Brighton is thus far brilliant though so I do believe I’ve made the correct choice for relocation and inspiration… and a comparison to Anne Briggs is never a bad thing!

AGW: Not much about you is found on the net. You were born in Canada but then you travelled a lot. Was it your decision? Did you just follow your family?

Autumn: There isn’t a lot about me on the net, because to be honest I’m quite a private person and I don’t give a lot of interviews.
I grew up in Canada, in the north, surrounded by wilderness and expansiveness - maybe that’s what fostered an adventurous spirit in me, and a love for distances. I moved overseas when I was 18, purely on instinct, as I had wanted to live in Ireland and Britain for some time. As a Canadian, I received both a student visa, and as my grandfather was English, an Ancestry visa, and so I remained for some years, mostly in Belfast, but also living in Scotland and Western Ireland and Northern England. I spent a lot of time flying back and forth between Canada and the UK, as I was studying Music also at the time, at University in Canada. I suppose I just became restless again, and that restlessness took me to America, first to Memphis TN, and then to New York, where I lived in the Village and absolutely loved it. After that, Canada again for a time, due to family concerns, and now I’ve been away again, for most of this year, mostly living in Ireland. Everywhere I go I create more musically and have the joy of working with new souls on inspiring projects. I’m very thankful for this.

AGW: So you are Canadian - do you feel you belong to that culture, or perhaps somewhere else? Do you feel a specific affinity for any one location? Or are you more of a ’stateless’ (don’t know if that’s the correct word) soul?

Autumn: I’m not at all nationalistic, I consider myself from Earth - though admittedly Canada is a beautiful country and I especially appreciate the vastness of Nature there, which informs and inspires everything I do.

AGW: Are you classically trained?

Autumn: Yes, I am classically trained. Though admittedly I’ve not now played piano in years due to the travelling, and therefore I’m mostly guitar based. But I do tend to write for the other instruments, harmonies etc on a piano when one is handy.

AGW: Ok so you are generally responsible for the arrangements…

Autumn: While it is true that I write most of the arrangements, Terra Infinita was a collaboration with Irish composer Scott McLaughlin. So I wrote the songs, we recorded them with just myself, guitar and vocal harmonies and then he wrote some arrangements, which were sent over to me in Canada for feedback, then I wrote back with some ideas etc., and it went back and forth like this, across the Atlantic, until they were complete. So these arrangements are mostly his, and Dave Colohan’s whistle is his own also. On my first EP Another Window, Christian Frederickson (the viola player from American alt-orchestral band Rachel’s), arranged his own viola parts also, which were truly lovely. (The songs on Another Window were originally all written with cello actually, so there are two versions of each of the songs in existance!) I love to work with players who have ideas for their own parts - it can be such an epiphany to hear arrangements or instrumentation that I wouldn’t have created myself - a whole new dimension to the song is unearthed.

AGW: It looks like you are a private person on the music business side, too: you say that, wherever you go, you create more music, but you released only 2 EP during the years. Again, was it your decision? Since your music seems to have strong links with your inner life, sharing it is not a thing to be taken for granted. What’s your attitude towards releasing it and playing it live?

Autumn: It is true that I’ve released very little thus far. I was in a band in the late nineties in Belfast, while I was a student, and we released an independent EP which is entirely lost to obscurity!

AGW: I’m curious about it: what kind of music did you play?

Autumn: As for the band Resin, which I co-founded in Belfast in the late nineties: we were kind of a My Bloody Valentine meets Cocteau Twins meets classical music I suppose, in a very chaotic fashion! Very melodic, quite dark, quite heavy. Instrumentation was guitars, bass, cello, violin, drums and percussion, vocals, lots of effects, sometimes keyboards. Our drummer Shaun Robinson, is now doing very well in the band Oppenheimer, which is his pop-punk creation. Scott was also in that band, so we go way back! It was an intriguing, though short-lived, experience.

AGW: Then you moved to the USA…

Autumn: When I first moved to the States I spent a couple of years working on simply becoming a good songwriter, finding my inspiration and working with different instrumentations, and I performed a lot also. I then had the good fortune to meet Christian Frederickson, and he really supported the music and with him I recorded Another Window in Louisville Kentucky, which was released in 2001. I spent the next two years touring a lot, mostly with Memphis Symphony cellist David Cho, and recording also, but nothing came out of that which I wanted to release. I also spent quite a bit of time booking other indie musicians and trying to get more of a light upon alternative folk music in the area.
I moved to New York after this - one of my favourite places on earth!
Unfortunately, due to illness, I had to take more than a year off of music, but I spent that time writing and studying fiction and poetry, and wandering and exploring the Village - I now think of that time as a ‘filling-up’ time, a time for rest and inspiration. I did begin working with some stellar musicians, but while in Nyc I found out that my father was very ill and returned home to Canada, where I remained for another year and half. Within that time I began coming over to Ireland to record the sessions that eventually became Terra Infinita with Irish composer Scott McLaughlin. I toured also in Ireland, but admittedly up until last year, my focus has mainly been on family, and hence the few releases.
Soooo, that brings us to last year. I moved back to Ireland, mostly living in Galway and County Clare, and within that time I had the lovely fortune to contribute to the next Agitated Radio Pilot cd World Winding Down, and also to work with fellow Rusted Rail act Phantom Dog Beneath the Moon. I’ve been performing with both United Bible Studies and their west-coast contigent CUBS, as well as playing my own shows. More recently I’ve collaborated with Dorset-based Plinth and the A Lords, both being projects of the estimable Mike Tanner. He has also engineered my next set of recordings tentatively entitled Parlour Sketches. I do believe I’m contributing a song or two to the next Owl Service cd as well, which is due out this summer. Lastly, I just joined Orchestra Noir as a vocalist (lots of recording happening right now) and I’m collaborating with the Joy of Nature on his next project… So there you have it! Lovely souls all and I consider myself blessed.
As for releasing music and playing live, I find it both a gift and an honour if anyone wants to hear what I might have to offer. I hope to record and release music, and work with other inspiring souls as often as I can. It truly is a strange and oft-unexpected path, one must be very adaptable, and it can sometimes be quite a struggle, but there is always inspiration and there is always joy.

AGW: Let’s move on to Terra Infinita. Why the italian title?

Autumn: As with everything lyrical for me, the words, the titles, the themes, they create themselves. I knew that I wanted to dedicate this EP to Goddess-energies, Nature energy - hence the mantra to Tara, and the various lyrical references in there - and the words ‘terra infinita’ just came into my mind. I wasn’t even sure if I’d heard and/or spelled them correctly until I researched it, and indeed, the translation of Earth Everlasting was so perfect and so beautiful. That was it. It named itself.

AGW: I don’t know if ‘everlasting’ has all the nuances that ‘infinita’ has: it’s about time, space and definition at once…

Autumn: Yes, ‘infinita’ is infinitely more intriguing in connotation than ‘everlasting’. I guess I think of it as the Earth will go on, long after we’re gone, it’s something to believe in and draw strength from, something stable and constant in it’s eternally changing way…

AGW: Ok so the EP is about the earth goddess, nature, energy. I thought it was more turned towards the inner side, you know, somewhere within…

Autumn: You are indeed correct about the EP being about the ‘inner side, within’ - the spiritual element is of course what I’ve used to get myself through the trials that the songs suggest. Hence the Goddess/Nature element - this is where I find my strength. There is an element of loss threading throughout the songs, and in writing them I find the recovery from the loss, or at least the beginning of a healing process.

AGW: Spirituality seems to have a big role in your life and music… Are you Buddhist?

Autumn: No I’m not Buddhist, nor do I follow any specific teachings. I observe the world around me and within me for guidance. I have a deep love for Nature and find much of inspiration therein. I believe that at the core of the world’s varying religious traditions lie the same truths – many roads to the same source etc.

AGW: As for the label ‘ethereal folk’ you are often associated to: what does this hyped word ‘folk’ means to you? Are your roots only in the vast northern spaces or in some musical world too? Do you listen to a lot of music?

Autumn: The tag ‘ethereal folk’. I suppose in trying to describe what I’m doing the haunting element has become predominant to observers, and the gentleness. I don’t think it’s an entirely accurate description - labels never are - however I have no problem being cast as ‘folk’ since I love and have been influenced by so much folk music of varying traditions. I don’t pay much attention to hype as you can imagine, I’ve always just done my own thing regardless of whether or not there was a ’scene’ going on. Musically I have so many influences and/or inspirations. Ancient music, troubadour and trouvere songs, chant, many, many composers, so many folk musics of the world, especially Irish traditional and Eastern varieties, and then of course as for modern inspirations: Tim and Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Dead Can Dance, Prog Rock, Dylan, Ben Harper, much 60’s folk, Meredith Monk’s Book of Days and so much more. As for what I’ve been listening to lately, I’m really loving the piano and tape loops of William Basinski and Steve Reich’s Cello counterpoint.

AGW: How do you ‘use’ music?

Autumn: I’m not entirely sure what you mean but I’ll say this: music for me is simply an extension of myself, a way to communicate, a way to put forth an energy that I hope will be useful to someone else. I consider music cathartic and therefore different musics are useful to people for a variety of emotional purposes. I find that I often write about recovering from hardship, about faith and about the beauty of the world around me. Simply about having hope. And from the feedback I’ve received I realise that this is an energy that other souls need in their lives at times. I hope my experiences and emotional delvings can be of use to others.

AGW: Do you know the artists I compared you to in my blog? You really remind me of Jessica Bailiff, not just because of the music but also the kindness and the overall attitude…

Autumn: I haven’t heard of Jessica Bailiff, but I certainly must check her out. I hadn’t heard of the others either - simply more music to find and maybe love!

AGW: I’ll ask you the predictable question about the new songs: do you think you will release them in this more simple dress?

Autumn: The new songs will indeed be released in this new simpler dress, with no effects whatsoever and with the room itself providing the ambience. We will be adding orchestrations however. Nick from Directorsound is working out piano and harmonium parts at the moment, and there may also be banjo and clarinet and/or bassoon making their way into the mix. But we’ll see. I’m happy enough releasing them just as they are, but even with orchestrations they will remain simple and immediate. I’m thinking that the title will be Parlour Sketches, paying homage to both the lovely parlour guitar that I used for each song, and to the parlour itself that we recorded in!

AGW: Do you feel a kind of urgency to communicate? May this be a new artistic path?

Autumn: I don’t know if I feel an ‘urgency to communicate’ - it’s rather that I would like whatever communication I may have with others to be clear and honest and true. And as for the simpler style of this recording, this isn’t quite a new path for me. My first EP Another Window was very lo-fi with spare orchestration. But after the lushness of Terra Infinita I wanted a return to simple beauty, with each instrument feeling extremely present, and with less emphasis on technology. And I loved being outside of the studio, with a cat wandering about, sipping tea and hearing the birds sing while I was recording.

AGW: Do you have a day job?

Autumn: Yes, I’ve had many part-time jobs, though for the past year I’ve mostly been doing music and living on savings while I travel. I sometimes teach (yes, music) and I began my own business in Canada last year called Sacred Space, which assists with and/or teaches others to organize, clear and cleanse their personal space so it can be more conducive to working, creating, healing - whatever they need. I create cleansing products with essential oils and herbs also. I’m a nature girl!

AGW: This definitely makes sense. Music is said to be a way to create and organize space…

Una rapida segnalazione per questo mignon sommerso, Now When I Wear An Anchor, ristampa di una cassetta del 2005 distribuita ora gratuitamente in 100 cdr (ma bellini eh) da Caff Flick (occhio ai Lucky Dragons nel roster). Chi è il Freak Paeans non si capisce bene, ma si sa che suona la chitarra e ci canta sopra leggero 11 canzoni che in meno di due minuti dicono tutte le loro cose, intime e fragili ma in modo solido e ben definito. Roba da cameretta, non a bassa fedeltà (c’è anche qualche raddoppio vocale) ma minore al limite dell’invisibilità, che senza disturbare per l’ennesima volta Nick Drake può tranquillamente rimandare alla linea dello zio Billy, Bonnie Prince. Cose così

Freak Paeans - Cathy with the laughing eyes