Location Taken: Just East of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Time Taken: October 2012
It’s Balticon weekend, so I’ve been spending my days listening to very intelligent people talk about all sorts of fascinating topics, from managing a wordpress blog (expect a few changes soonish) to full out theoretical physics. My brain’s a little overloaded from it all, and there’s still one more day to go!
But one of the first things I did was hit the Dealer’s Room and check out all the fascinating things on sale. And, for the third year in a row, I bought a few CDs of Filk Music.
Now, that’s not a misspelling of folk. Well, technically it is, since that’s where the term came from, but it has taken on a life of its own. As the Wikipedia page on the subject says, it’s a bit tough to define. It’s a musical tradition that has grown out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy fandom found at conventions like Balticon. It’s got some traits in common with folk, and traditional medieval (and other era) songs are often sung along the modern music, but it also occasionally pulls from all sorts of other musical styles and weaves them in. But it’s the subject matter that makes me love the genre. Rather than the classic mainstream topics of love, sex, and courtship with occasional hardship of life mixed in, Filk pulls from all aspects of life, and beyond. Stories of adventure, war, cats, architecture, and truck-driving vampires are all quite acceptable. As are songs pulling from books and movies (usually science fiction and fantasy stories, given where the genre formed), showing just what made those tales so powerful to the readers.
It’s music that makes me dream grand dreams, think deep thoughts, and yearn for more than I have.
Which is why when I saw two new CDs from two of my favorite filkers, I snatched them right up.
The first one is Horsetamer, by Julia Ecklar. If you want to listen to the whole thing right from the publisher, here, it’s available for preview right there. And oh my, the horns! Such marvelous instrumental work! And such strong lyrics! *swoons*
The second one is Avalon is Risen, by Leslie Fish. By pure coincidence, it’s also produced by Prometheus Music, so you can listen to it as well. I’ve only just started listening to it, and well, I need to get this blog up, but so far it’s excellent. Not as epic as Horsetamer, but quite good in its own right.
Both of them are making my brain spin with story fragments and dreams of epic landscapes, full of mountains and high-growing trees. Luckily I have some pictures with that sort of landscape, so I can share that right away. We’ll see if the story fragments ever grow into anything larger.
Ah, be careful! Some of the songs on “Horsetamer” and “Avalon Is Risen” were taken *from* stories that already exist. “The Horsetamer’s Daughter”, for example, is about to be published in the collection “The Music of Darkover”, and “Wanderer” is taken directly from a famous Norse legend about Odin. Best talk to the songs’ authors before publishing. Good luck.
–Leslie < )O(
All my story fragments that get inspired with songs get mixed with all sorts of other fragments and bear little resemblance to what inspired them by the time they come out, so I don’t worry too much about that. I do need to check out some of the stories that inspired these songs, though, just because the songs are so fabulous and make me want to know more. “The Horsetamer’s Daughter” is definitely up there on that list, as it both tells the story beautifully and leaves just enough untold that my imagination paints a glorious picture to fill in the gaps.
Now excuse me a second while I geek out about someone whose work I really like finding my little blog.
(OMGOMG! Leslie Fish! I love your work! I own like four of your CDs and would own them all if I had the money! And you found my work! OMGOMG!)
Ok, done. Thanks for commenting. :3