SILVER FLOWER (KALI'S INVITATION)
All my life I've been running away
In the wind I taste the grave of everything
So I've come to your mountain at last
I climb until I feel your breath; I fear no death
All the other echoes fade fast against your voice
Blizzards won't keep me from finding your embrace
Will you stay with me when I walk into the void?
Can we find our way back home?
Winds pick up and you darken the sky
Shimmers of my demise light my eyes
Phantoms circle and swirl overhead
Dancing in the cosmic heartbeat, we rise
Take me in your palm, love, take all my pain away
Blacken my mind with all your promises
Cross into the darkness, this lonely love's abyss
Will you give my corpse a kiss?
I come closer to the edge
Let the wind blow strong against my back
All I'd come to fear has come to pass
I am free at last
SHIVA IN THE BLOOD ORCHARD
Time and space collide in me
Holding my soul
Every lifetime, the same
Flesh is not my home
Let me go
Freedom will not be contained
By such frail and mortal frame
I detest such pain and futile suffering
Rivers of life flow through me
They sing of emptiness
Homeless without the void
Yearning to be destroyed
Eyes of fire unmake desire
Burning the world
Pleasure dying
All I feel is not what's real
Fallen from my identity
Suffer to remember
All I seek cannot be reached
Time comes down like a guillotine
Dying to remember
Flesh is not my home
Let me go
Freedom will not be contained
By such frail and mortal frame
I detest such pain and futile suffering
Rivers of life flow through me
They sing of emptiness
Homeless without the void
Yearning to be destroyed
WISH THE BONES AWAY
Find no meaning in the words
Nature revealing
A structure built to fail
The rusting of the rail
Find no reason to return
Spirit is leaving once and for all
Departure absolute
Impossible pursuit
Wouldn't even know where to begin...
Wish the bones away, my love
A drunken pilot soaring to the sun
The glory of the one
A martyr of the old world long gone
The turning of the ghostly tide
The weight of silence, crashing like waves
Rushing down the wires
Rising from the mires
Spectres from a story unknown
You plummet through the heart of everything
You never plan on ever anchoring
So revel in this moment of bliss...
Come into the clearing of the woods
Step into the places where I stood
Just take the risk
Cease to exist...
SPIRIT OF UNKNOWING
Tangles branches, silent forest
Coffins slowly rise
Words are hurting, dust like memories
Speckling our eyes
In the spirit of unknowing, I'll lay low to the ground
Hiding from the lights that twinkle
when no one is around...
Tell me something that we're sharing
Never on display
Let the bells chime sweetly on this ordinary day
As the uncertainty lingers every now and then
Behind the silhouettes that crumble
Long after the end...
This is really just a footnote of a story unread
With swallowed tongue I have come much further than the dead
Another world eclipses this one
Will you wait for me there?
Hear my prayer right through the blackness
My words are stripped bare...
about
This EP presents the contrasting styles of two highly original and compulsively listenable artists.
Cornelius Corvidae is in some ways a throwback to a very adventurous time in music when fringe progressive folk acts like Comus and the Incredible String Band took listeners on mystical, dramatic journeys driven by cosmic wordplay and a marvellous intensity of execution. This is the music of a glade soaked in moonlight, like something out of a George Macdonald or Arthur Machen story.
On the other end of the spectrum is Ali Murray’s trademark mastery of the art of melancholy, here represented by two delicate tracks that match delicately plucked acoustic guitars and ambient textures worthy of his instrumental project The Lonely Bell. As always, Murray utilizes just enough of a Scottish folk flavour to add a windswept feel, which, when combined with his ethereal, yearning vocals, never fails to make sorrow sound sweet.
Two distinct artists, four wonderful songs.
- Allister Thompson, Feb 2023
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credits
released March 26, 2023
''...a delightfully haunted EP of two criminally unrecognised singer-songwriters doing what they do best. Great stuff.'' - Fog Songs
''...an excellent split EP'' - Heresiarch Music Reviews
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Monolith Cocktail review :
''As the name suggests this is an EP split between two artists playing two songs each...
Cornelius Corvidae - Two songs of cosmic Americana. ‘Silver Flower (Kali’s Invitation)’ employs acoustic picked guitar on a bleak ballad, all dark imagery and campfire ghost-story shadow. ‘Shiva in the Blood Orchard’ meanwhile, uses picked acoustic guitar set against Tudor-like keyboard melodies (reminiscent of the Moody Blues) on a dark folk ballad.
Ali Murray - On some of his other releases he harnesses a shoegaze-like sonic template. Here he adopts a stripped-back sound of acoustic and electric guitar and organ. Standout track is the beautiful ‘Wish the Bones Away’ with its poetic lyrics and melancholic gothic strangeness. ‘Spirit of Unknowing’ meanwhile, uses acoustic guitar to great effect on an atmospheric ballad that combines the phrasing of John Grant with the sadness of Elliot Smith. Two songs of beauty and wonder. Two artists, four great songs!''
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Tracks 1 & 2 were written, performed, recorded, produced and mixed by Cornelius Corvidae
Tracks 3 & 4 were written, performed, recorded, produced and mixed by Ali Murray.
Vapour Night is another one of Ali's solo music projects. Dark noisy wintery pop. For fans of shoegaze, dark electronica, noise rock, post-punk, dream pop, noise, post-rock... Ali Murray
Anna Arobas makes intricate, otherworldly folk-pop with delicate, glacial arrangements but a howl of heartbreak at the center. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 11, 2022
