Mediaeval Baebes: Live Stream, Glastonbury 28 June 2020

https://mediaevalbaebes.bandcamp.com/album/prayers-of-the-rosary

Katharine Blake
Rosa Marsh
Michael J York

This live performance was streamed on 28 June 2020 from Glastonbury

New studio album - Prayers of the Rosary
released 4 December 2020 on Bellissima Records

Recorded during the wilderness months of 2020 in the legend-enshrouded spiritual centre of Glastonbury, Prayers of the Rosary is the Mediaeval Baebes' tenth album, and the first to include only wholly original compositions.

The twelve tracks, composed by founding member Katharine Blake, set the Latin prayers of the Rosary to music in the plainsong tradition of early Christian liturgy. For this release Katharine worked extensively with multi-instrumentalists Michael J York (The Utopia Strong, Coil, Teleplasmiste) and Charlie Cawood (Lost Crowns, Knifeworld, Anathema), who between them contributed to a diverse palette of exotic and unusual instrumentation - bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy and tanpura can be heard alongside lyre, oud and Chinese pipa. Some songs convey a joyous rapture, their lilting or rising vocals set against a backdrop of pealing church bells. Others are subtly interwoven with the gossamer threads of the natural world, the web of life captured in field recordings at Glastonbury's Chalice Well, Avebury's stone circle and other sacred sites along the St Michael's ley line. Yet others evoke the hushed mysteries of a hallowed inner sanctum -eerie, almost unsettling chants with eastern nourishes suggestive of ancient rites that predated and influenced the Rosary.

Although cloistered away from each other during the early months of the pandemic, the Mediaeval Baebes took no vows of silence in 2020. Each contributed vocals remotely via the internet (perhaps the technological, modern equivalents of ley lines) until in September they were able to record together in person at Heath Street Baptist Church in Hampstead.

The result of their faithful efforts is a mesmerising album that manages to be both reassuring and haunting, meditative and unsettling, tranquil and provocative. It is spiritual without being orthodox, respectful yet not reverential - an artwork suffused with powerful symbolism but transcending any weighty dogma.

Prayers of the Rosary is available from https://mediaevalbaebes.bandcamp.com

Видео Mediaeval Baebes: Live Stream, Glastonbury 28 June 2020 канала Ashley Jones