CD album: Weird Tales

Audio CD (2009) Label: Cyclops / No Image (Cycl 171 / NI CD 14)

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Weird Tales reviews

Composed and arranged by Richard Wileman. (Track 3 composed by Richard Wileman, Don Falcone and Bridget Wishart).

Richard Wileman - classical, electric and bass guitars, keyboards, percussion, bouzouki, rastrophone

with: Ileesha Bailey - vocals (1,2,6), Helen Dearnley - violin (1,2,6,8), Don Falcone - organs, synth arpeggios (3), Caron Hansford - oboe (3,4,5,6), cor anglais (3,4,5,7), Amy Hedges - clarinet (1-8), tenor saxophone (5), Zoë Josey - flute (5,7,8) , alto saxophone (5), soprano saxophone (8), Jemima Palfreyman - tuba (1,4), Bridget Wishart - EWI wind synthesiser (3).

Produced by Richard Wileman. Recorded at The Twenty First (2007 - 2009). Album artwork by Richard Wileman. Mastered at The Twenty First. Compiled with Pete Lamb at The Music Workshop.

Tracks:

1. The Whitstable Host

I wanted a host to open the proceedings, rather like in an Amicus portmanteau horror film. I've been looking for an excuse for years to do a piece dedicated to the wonderful actor Peter Cushing - watercolourist, vegetarian, beheader of evil Karnsteins... and with this album, I've given him the starring role as master of ceremonies.

2. Skulls In The Stars

Inspired by the Solomon Kane stories of Robert E. Howard which were originally published in the magazine Weird Tales.

3. The Eye Of Silence

Inspired by the painting of the same name by Max Ernst.

(photo above by Karen Anderson)

4. Green Dog Trumpet

Inspired by the first picture story in the book of the same name by Ian Miller. Green Dog Trumpet is a giant dog creature with a box shaped body and huge trumpet on top. I remember buying this way back in around 1980(?) from WHSmith's in Mansfield on the way back from Saturday morning art class and it was a firm favourite of mine back then, full of strange, bizarre, gothic paintings to illustrate wordless stories.

5. The White Rose

A misguided and almost fatal love theme. Inspired by the Sheridan Le Fanu short story The Room in the Dragon Volant.

6. The Atom Age Sense Of Impermanence

The title is taken from a line in the novel Dracula Cha Cha Cha by Kim Newman: 'He was a for-the moment person, a present-tense man, just right for the atom age sense of impermanence.' This piece of music evolved as a hybrid of two favourite themes of mine - Dracula (in this case, an alternate history) and the painting 'John Deth' by Edward Burra.

7. Island Universes

'Island Universes' are perhaps better known as Galaxies - 'vast systems of billions of stars that populate the Universe'. I hoped to try and evoke some of the emptyness, beauty and drama of space. I've always loved a lot of 'space music', especially sci-fi soundtracks, but I was especially inspired to write this after listening to the Chappell library music recordings Experiments In Space by Robert Farnon.

8. There Is No Finished World

Inspired to a degree by the surrealist painter Andre Masson's 'automatic drawing' technique and his painting There Is No Finished World .... so, a spot of 'automatic composing', if you will. Masson described automatic drawing as: 'physically, you must make a void in yourself: the automatic drawing taking it's source in the unconscious must appear as an unforseen birth. The first graphic apparitions on the paper are pure gesture, rhythm, incantation, and as a result, pure scrawl. This is the first phase. In the second phase, the image that was latent reclaims it's rights.' I decided to make a simple two finger guitar chord the 'pencil' and the timing of 5/4 the 'canvas.' I then recorded a stream of consciousness set of these two finger chords bouncing around the neck of the guitar for my first phase. The second phase was seeing what I could do melodically with these sequences ... which also included adjusting a few bars to 3/4.

Recording Weird Tales at the Twenty First studio (2007 - 2009):

   

   

Weird Tales at The Music Workshop (22/12/08):

Since The Age Of Science And Enlightenment album, I've done my album compiling and mastering double checking at The Music Workshop studio run by Pete Lamb (above). Here we are doing some preliminary Weird Tales work before the final run in the spring of next year when the album should be completed. Not only is it an invaluable audio check for me, it also gives me the excuse to catch up every now and then with Pete. For those who know my musical past, all of the Lives And Times albums were recorded at The Music Workshop with Pete engineering and guiding. An expert, an enthusiast, a fine musician, my own 'George Martin' in those days and most of all, a gent.