Stella Natura: The Light of Ancestral Fires

Three days and three evenings of music located in the Sierra Nevada’s Tahoe National Forest Desolation Wilderness: September 21-23

Stella Natura: The Light of Ancestral Fires will be held at Shinnyboo Creek Resort in the high Sierras, in the heart of Tahoe National Forest’s Desolation Wilderness. This 160 acres of private property is lush with greenery thriving around every bend, with towering pines shading the trails and paths that lead you to the south fork Yuba River rushing over rock formations into gushing waterfalls and tide pools.

Weekend ticket passes include camping. Additionally, a limited number of VIP and tent cabins are available for rent during Stella Natura.

Cabin Features -

• Includes 2 tickets
• Sleeps 6 adults
• Bathroom & Shower
• Fire pit/BBQ & tent camping in surrounding area
• 2 Screen printed festival posters by Benjamine Vierling. Limited, hand-numbered and signed by the artist.
• 2 Festival shirts
• A bottle of mead

Food and beverages will be available for purchase on site. Vegan/vegetarians will be well accommodated. Please do not hesitate to bring your own water, although water will be available on site.

(Cabin renters are welcome to share the additional sleeping space with a maximum of 4 other ticket holders)

Tent cabins are also available for rent .

These are large canvas tents on raised decks that have sleeping arrangements for 4-6 adults.

Tent Cabin Features -

• Includes 2 tickets
• Sleeps 4-6 adults
• Fire pit
• Outdoor shower (shared with other tent cabin rentals)

(Tent renters are welcome to share the additional sleeping space with a maximum of 4 other ticket holders)

See the get tickets page for more information.

Location:

25 Miles W. of Truckee
7 Miles NE. of Emigrant Gap
Soda Springs, CA.

Distance from local airports:

• Reno NV: 60 MI
• Sacramento: 70 MI
• Oakland: 170 MI
• San Francisco: 177 MI

Litterbugs and problem starters will be ejected upon their first incident, without refund or remorse – We are not here to mess up this beautiful landscape, so be a responsible adult!

For the Google map, view it here.

Featured Artists

Aerial Ruin

Aerial Ruin is the mostly acoustic solo project of Erik Moggridge whose current and former bands include Old Grandad, drift of a curse and the late eighties/early nineties bay area thrash/death metal band Epidemic. Having relocated from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon Aerial Ruin has a full-length album, “valleys of the earth” out on Vendlus Records. Aerial Ruin, sometimes described as neo folk or doom folk performs live regularly in the NW and has embarked on a handful of short tours since 2009. Aerial Ruin is currently recording a new full-length to be preceded by one or two minor releases.

Aluk Todolo (FR)

Aluk Todolo is an instrumental power trio performing Occult Rock, a methodical exploration of the powers of musical trance. Part occult black metal fend and part snide kraut menace, the band conjures rabid obsessive rhythms and abyssal disharmonic guitars, subliminal spiritualist vibrations and bizarre, magick summonings. Aluk Todolo reduces psychedelic improvisation to a bare, telluric instrumentation, in which dry, spare percussion grievously mines the scrapes, shrieks and shimmer of mutated guitar and bass. The band’s sound is monolithic and stabbing, hypnotic but unpredictable, minimalist yet teeming: a dangerous, noxious coil of all things black.

Arktau Eos (FI)

Arktau Eos’ potent visionary brew, distilled from raw elemental powers and oneiric sources through the alembic of Art, is a highly unusual amalgam of artwork, performance, and music. Arktau Eos celebrate seven years of continuous activity with two special albums and selected performances, presenting an all new set of sonic forays into the unknown.

Having previously toured Russia, performed in the U.K. (including London’s Equinox Festival) and privately in a chapel and a haunted house among other places in their native Finland, Arktau Eos are happy to finally announce an appearance at the Stella Natura festival.

Arktau Eos run their own studio-laboratory, using a host of unusual ethnic and self-made instruments as well as analog machinery from the ’70s, often incorporating field recordings and audial snapshots of unheralded apparitions into the mix. They have released three albums, all in non-standard, partly handmade packaging, and recently contributed a track to the musical supplement of the Abraxas Journal no. 2 (Fulgur, 2011). The two new albums set for release in late 2012 are titled ”Unworeldes” (vinyl), and ”Ioh-Maera” (CD). Arktau Eos are also working on a special event, centered around ”Ioh-Maera”, with Romanian artist Costin Chioreanu, which will take place in Bucharest in October.

Ash Borer

Black Metal from Arcata, California formed in the winter of 2008. Since formation, Ash Borer’s sonic output has consisted of 2 demos, a split LP with Fell Voices, as well as a self-titled full length, released on LP by Pesanta Urfolk. This Fall will see the release of the band’s 2nd full length album, ‘Cold of Ages’, released by Profound Lore Records (CD), and Pesanta Urfolk (LP).

Blood Axis

Burial Hex

Burial Hex is a chthonic composition cycle by Clay Ruby, inaugurated during All Saints in 2004. The cycle was initiated to prepare for the final mysteries in this Kali Yuga. Since it’s inception, Burial Hex has released over 70 compositions and has given concerts in over 20 different countries. Over the years, Clay Ruby has developed a repertoire of shocking dynamics, creating what he has dubbed “Horror Electronics”, which can range from graceful chamber hymns to a roaring avalanche of industrial noise. Aside from being the lead producer of Burial Hex, Clay Ruby is also the man behind Rise, Wormsblood, The Far, as well as being co-producer of Horrid Red, Journey to Ixtlan, Wedding, Hintergedanken, an active member of the Second Family Band, a frequent collaborator with Sylvester Anfang II, and a former member and/or collaborator with Kinit Her, Zola Jesus, Jex Thoth, Davenport Family, Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, and many more.

Changes

Robert N. Taylor and Nicholas Tesluk, being first cousins and best friends, have certainly led intertwining lives. They were both born in Chicago, Illinois, however Nicholas and his family moved to the “country” of northern Illinois when he was about four years of age. Though separated by as few as forty (then) to as many as 1500 miles (now), they have stayed in close contact over the years.

In the mid-60s, Nicholas started playing electric guitar and took lessons for a while, giving him a grounding in notation, chord structure and progressions. However, it wasn’t until he began playing Robert’s acoustic guitar in the summer of 1969, that he found his true passion in its beautifully soaring, natural sound. Soon after, he purchased the stunning twelve-string acoustic guitar with which he still performs today, and the magic of the sound that emanated from this fine instrument inspired him to devote much of his time to practice and style development.

Robert has written beautiful poetry and prose and worked in many art forms from a very early age. Again speaking of the summer of 1969, they came to a realization that by combining Robert’s poetic talents with Nicholas’s melodies, they could develop as a songwriting team. Thus, the musical duo of Changes was born. It wasn’t long until their talents came to fruition and they created a profusion of powerful apocalyptic songs, songs of legendary gallantry, and beloved, soul-stirring songs of love. They had a very good following in the Chicagoland area and performed at coffee shops, universities and Renaissance Fairs with some regularity until 1975. It was then that they decided to go their separate ways as Robert and his family moved to Wisconsin, while Nicholas and his then wife moved to Colorado.

Flash forward to 1994, when dear friend Michael Moynihan discovered the music of Changes through chapbooks that Robert had created of song lyrics and demo tapes that the duo had recorded in the early 70s. Michael, along with production partner and friend, Willi Stasch, produced an album of Changes’ early music entitled Fire of Life. It was an instant success in Europe, resurrecting the duo of Changes and labeling them the “Fathers of Apocalyptic Folk”.

Circulation of Light

Circulation of Light are the solo audio efforts of Nathaniel Ritter (Wreathes, Kinit Her, The Second Family Band, Burial Hex, et al.). Inaugurated in 2009 as an outlet for recordings of his “lo-fi piano mantras”, Ritter has expanded the scope of this project to include all manifestations of his individual aural explorations. Most recently he has worked in the tradition of electronic musicians such as Wendy Carlos, Isao Tomita, and Laibach; rendering classical compositions in his own fetishized way with LEDNAH : Seven Meditations On G​.​F. Handel’s Organ Concertos Op. 4; sonically intricate and slowly evolving renditions of themes from some of the 17th century composer’s lesser known works. While often serving as a backdrop for the more pronounced melodies of his frequent collaborators’ musicianship, Ritter’s ritual ambience is at the fore as Circulation of Light.

COTA

C.O.T.A. has just released a new full-length album titled, “New Mythologies.” This release encompasses a carefully crafted blend of material recorded over the last seven years. It takes off where “Ta’wil” and “Marches and Meditations” left off and spirals into a new mix of post-urban audio journeys. This release presents ideas and sounds that attempt to address humankind’s struggle to come to terms with the new dichotomies between the local and the global and our shared relationship with nature. It is a reintroduction of an old way of living into the global village, to build a new sustainability and mutual understanding.

C.O.T.A. uses sound as a vessel for creating trance/ritual states that rekindle the ancient collective memory. Inspired by intense outdoor and ritual experiences, we strive to convey deep seeded interest in deep ecology and new mythologies. Sound is the transmitter, which conveys the power and intensity of excursions into the wilds. Much of the artwork utilized is a direct result of such infused states—an attempt to convey some mythological or archetypal experience. Musick for a return to the Garden and a post-urban way of life!

Funerary Call (CA)

Drawing from a diverse palette of analog and digital hardware, found objects, field recordings and ritual implements, Funerary Call creates an unsettling ancient atmosphere that aims to transcend the perceptive listener, spiritually and emotionally – beyond all boundaries and limitations.

Channeling energy and inspiration from chthonic elements, the music celebrates the exploration of man’s darker half: the shadow-self. It is an aural descent into the underworld of unconscious and subconscious dimensions. Challenging the listener to gaze into the mirror reversed and walk the paths below.

Since its original conception in 1994, Funerary Call has proven to be a restless entity that continues to evolve, stretching its branches and tendrils far beyond the genre boundaries of electronic and acoustic music. Forever committed in the ritual of sound.

Hail

“We are born of the soggy nights in dark Cascadia spent with old vinyl, dark writings and the flicker of the film. Try as we might to do otherwise, everything we make is art. We are proud to be part of the movement of the wind, wave and fire. “

C. Eino Annala
Set Sothis Nox La
2012

Hail began as a performance project for Annala in the mid 1990s. The association with Set Sothis Nox La began around 1998. This core of ice has brought forth some enigmatic, singular music and the two have worked with many of the best of the doomed Northwest. Sometimes appearing live as withered monks in threes, sometimes high priests of the north with full ordinance on board. Hail is now focused on the mythology of the Kalevala. In particular a story of lust, hate, death and resurrection involving antics of the wayward hero-fool Lemminkainen in the land of death.

HELL

sludge funeral.

Hooded Archer

Ironwood (AU)

Ironwood hails from Sydney, Australia. A channel for forces elemental and spiritual, Ironwood’s fusion of progressive, folk, and metal influences invokes spiraling atmospheres and dark vistas.

Ironwood is currently working toward their third full-length, tentatively titledWell and Tree: a sustained meditation on nature and memory, mystery and ancestry.

For Stella Natura, Ironwood will perform in an acoustic format, drawing on and reworking the more extreme elements of their repertoire into fresh forms.

.

L’Acephale

L’Acéphale is based on the ideas and motivations of the early 20th century artistic, philosophic, esoteric secret circle and journal of the same name. Most prominent amongst its members was Georges Bataille, whose writings gave life-blood to that, and this project. Acéphale’s etymology is from the Latin a-cephalus, meaning headless or without a chief. The motivations? Religion. Sociology. Philosophy & The Sacred Conjuration. An ensemble fiercely religious in a Nietzschean manner, currently resurrected in this incarnation fusing equal portions epistemic terrorism and literary atavism, basing its transmission in the combination of both black metal and folk elements while also including the experimentism and ambience of both these genres.

Conceived initially by Set Sothis Nox La in 2003 on a steady diet of Wolfthorn, Les Joyeux De La Princesse, Corrupted, Toroidh, Hate Forest, Drudkh, Krzysztof Penderecki, Veljo Tormis, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, Huun Huur Tu, Sadastor and various Tibetan and world folk musics in the cauldron of ceremonial birth. This project currently embodies several co-conspirators building on that foundation with additional elements: bacchanalian percussion, Ur Folk metal tinges and multi-vocal assault. Finding further insight from such luminaries as the thelemic prankster Kenneth Grant, Heathen epics such as The Eddas and The Sagas, German romantic writings of Ludwig Tieck, German Expressionism of Georg Heym and Georg Trakl, the Kosmischer Kreis (Alfred Schuler, Stefan George, Karl Wolfskehl) and the writings of the french decadents – surrealistic writers like Latreaumont and Unica Zurn. As well as writings related to Ouilipo (aka “Ouvroir de literature otentielle”) and authors such as Robert Walser, Bruno Schulz, Rene Daumal, Roger Caillois, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen and James Havoc. To the films of Ingmar Bergman and the Brothers Quay, and such artists as Hans Bellmer, Suehiro Maruo, Andre Masson, Frantisek Kupka, Franz Von Stuck and the great Austin Osman Spare.

While celebrating such folkways and beliefs prior to this modern era, be they Odinist, Druidic, Chod or many other belief systems wherein the balance of everyday life remains close to the earth: Life not separate from spirituality, but a spirituality infused with the base material. Not the “as above, so below” philosophy of Hermetic thought where one spiritual entity reigns above, but closer to the concept of Radical Traditionalism. Our philosophies, perhaps best quantified with the Bataillean statement that we stand as “a war machine against received ideas.”

Lasher Keen

Lasher Keen has been described as the thundering heartbeat of a bird within a Beast, powerfully strong, yet capable of delicate composition.

The origins of Lasher Keen began in late 2006. After recording the self tilted LP in San Francisco, Dylan Sheets moved back to the small mining town of Nevada City, California.

Working with various musicians & struggling to formulate a band made up of non standard instrumentation, it was here that Dylan met Bluebird & Sage who would prove to be versatile in musicianship & creative input. The final line up was complete. The group worked over the next 2 years playing up & down the west coast & traveling abroad to France, Germany, Ireland & Austria. Upon returning to the states work immediately continued on the then, already underway new album. “Wither” was released On the winter Solstice of 2009.

After the intense production of “Wither”, Lasher Keen evolved once more to form a new set of ideas based around the sacred female Mother Goddess. “Possessed by the Forest Queen” was released late in the winter of 2011. A 10″ vinyl EP issued as a limited edition run of only 323 copies. Six songs celebrating the cycles of magical women & breast shaped hills. This record features the guest talents of Robert Schultz on Jaw Harp & Markus Wolff adding his baritone vocal harmonies.

After releasing 2 albums in 2 years, Lasher Keen took to the wild roads of yonder Europa. An extensive tour commenced, including shows in Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy & France. I asked the group what they remembered most & this was their reply~ Sleeping in ancient crumbling cemeteries in the pouring rain, fitting almost every musical instrument we own into the smallest car known to man, busking in the middle of the night, meals shared to the sights & sounds of glorious rainbows & Alp horn serenades. Concerts in medieval bridges, giant cathedrals, Absinthe Bars, Elementary School playgrounds and on roof top flats overlooking the Swiss Alps at Sunset. Europe will never be the same…

Returning home from this exhaustive creative output, Lasher Keen did not rest & indulge in musical nostalgia. What was their their to do? How about creating their most epic full length record to date. With a name like “Berserker” this album is full of promise before one even pushes play. Extraordinary Cover Art by long time collaborator Markus Wolff will be the first thing you see when you hold this record in your little paws. Then it will be the music, replete with guest contributors Dawn McCarthy & Nils Frykdahl adding their unique vocal harmonies, Robert Schultz with his psychedelic saw & jaw harp & Cornelius Boots, Master of the Four Winds, laying down his funky Baritone Sax, Chakuhachi & throat singing.

A record commemorating the slain berserkers, whose energy & passion abound in each song on this latest musical offering of the group.

Lux Interna

Lux Interna crafts aural altars to the inner light. Formed by Joshua Levi Ian and Kathryn Mary, the project has hosted a shifting constellation of talents over the years, each leaving their trace upon the musical landscape. The current live lineup includes the talents of Kris Force (Amber Asylum) and Adam Collins-Torruella (Pesanta Urfolk). Through tapestries of minor chords, voices, delicate drones and violent sprawls of sound, Lux Interna has continued to hymn the hidden god with impassioned intensity, seeking fire in the tension between transcendence and immanence.

To date, Lux Interna has released five full length CDs and one 10” with the German cult label Eis & Licht, and the Brooklyn-based darkwave label, Projekt Records.

While drawing inspiration from Joshua’s intensive studies of Abrahamic mysticism, Lux Interna’s lyrics continue to be harvested from a deeply personal and idiosyncratic field of symbols and visions.

Although their earlier material was often associated with the genre of neofolk, their new album, there is light in the body / there is blood in the sun, has evidenced a musical shift marked by a heavier, more ritualistic sound, incorporating electric instruments, loops, and percussion and haunted by flourishes of ghostly banjo and droning fingerstyle guitar.

Menace Ruine (CA)

Menace Ruine began in 2006, following several other collaborative projects between the Montreal-based duo of S. de la Moth and Geneviève. Over the course of four albums and an EP they have forged a unique and idiosyncratic sound, constructed from vast, distorted, yet always melodic textures and the imposing voice and songwriting of Geneviève. MR recorded two CDs for Montreal’s Alien8 Recordings (later reissued on vinyl by Transcendental Creations) and a cassette on Tour de Garde. These were followed up in 2010 by ‘Union of Irreconcilables’, a CD and double LP on UK imprint Aurora Borealis, and a very limited 3″ CDr, ‘Sigil Sessions’, on Luchtrat of Belgium.

MR have played live extensively in Canada and the US, sharing stages with artists as diverse as Francisco López, Nadja, Daniel Menche, Wolf Eyes, and Watain. They conducted their first European tour in the spring of 2011 with French group Aluk Todolo, including an appearance at Holland’s Roadburn festival, where they were invited by 2011 curators Sunn 0))).

In the past year, the members of MR have been very busy; Geneviève’s other group Preterite released their debut CD last fall on Handmade Birds, and recorded their second during the winter. S has produced several cassettes with his new project S/V\R, the latest also released by Handmade Birds. Parallel to all this, a new Menace Ruine album is in the works, to be released on vinyl by Sige Records, and on CD by Profound Lore. The new album promises to be their most complex and ambitious recording to date, combining the graceful melodicism of 2008′s ‘The Die is Cast’ with near-symphonic structures and powerful rhythms.

Mournful Congregation (AU)

Novemthree

Conceived in 2004 in the Pacific Northwest, novemthree has been the sonic and conceptual project of Pythagumus Marshall, crafting gently dark and dreamlike tunes of psychedelic-fringed folk music with verses inspired by a longing for a connection with Nature, the sense of solitude and peace in the vastness of the cosmos, meandering reflections on life and loss. Numerous releases and collaborations have emerged from Pythagumus’s own Little Somebody Records and other labels, and 2012 hearkens the pending arrival of the first novemthree full-length. From 2009-onward the project has seen the creative inclusion of Michael Korchonnoff, and has grown to incorporate ritualized ambient elements in performance, woven in with the meditative acoustic melodies that have characterized past performances

Pyhä Kuolema (FI)

Pyhä Kuolema is a solo project of Mikko Pöyhönen. It was founded a while after the neofolk-duo Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa decided to quit. The ruins of Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa left behind were still smoking when something new, beautiful and fresh started already grow from there. The death of the duo Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa was also the birth of Pyhä Kuolema – a birth of an extremely intimate, emotional, personal, and spiritual solo-project

Traditional to the bone, but still clearly finding it’s own sound despite the classic ”man+guitar” approach, Pyhä Kuolema debut album ”Saavun vaikken kulkisi” brings forth a dozen of atmospheric, national romantic, extremely emotional and personal songs sung in Finnish. The style of playing and singing varies from solemn ritualistic neofolk-songs to troubadur-like playful approach to traditional folk.

Despite the fact that he is also a third of the neofolk-lounge band Tuhkankantajat (previously MAA), and half of the gloomy neofolk and freezing ritual music duo Tervahäät, he is still driven by so such a great urge to create, that new songs for Pyhä Kuolema are found frequently. He composed, sung, played, recorded and mixed the whole album by himself, giving it the intimate touch and manages the handling of the double edged sword that this kind of folk can be – the sometimes even rough and stripped down output with no gimmicks is this time successfully shaking hands with the alluring soft intensity.

River

Weaving wordless narratives as an acoustic tributary out of the electrified abrasiveness of our modern world, River is comprised of Nate Myers, Dylan Bloom and Michael Korchonnoff, who craft their instrumental passages through the use of Guitar, Octave-Mandolin, Bodhran and vocal harmonies. River flows from several locales in the mid-northern Cascadian region.

.

Sabbath Assembly

Sabbath Assembly is performing the hymns of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, an Apocalyptic religious sect from the late 60’s and early 70’s. The controversial theology of the church unites Jehovah, Lucifer, Satan and Christ, with the hymns invoking each of these ancient deities. The band includes Jamie Myers (ex-Hammers of Misfortune, Wolves in the Throne Room), Daron Beck (Pinkish Black), and Dave Nuss (No-Neck Blues Band).

Sangre de Muerdago (ES)

Sangre de Muerdago is pure raw energy…music and words inspired by passionate living roaming out of society and civilization…destroying taboos, destroying fears, into the depths of nature, welcome the unknown, welcome those with a pure heart…on the road and on the trail, lost in the woods, into the wild, in the endless paths of the soul, just a blanket in the backpack, filled in the way with magic, laughs, moments, tears, hearts…the wisdom of the old one, the child that doesn’t grow…seek the mysteries, throw the stone, run blindly with no goal, run through the woods, jump the gap, get wet, hug the wolf, howl at the moon, swim the seven seas…fearless and innocent, criminal and free…

Servile Sect

The Sterling Sisters

Sutekh Hexen

The Lindbergh Baby

The music of The Lindbergh Baby has been described as everything from psychoactive folklore to twisted Americana. Hailing from the Green Hills of Vermont, the band plays a unique flavor of folk that blends traditional instrumentation with an authentic rebellious spirit. The lyrics celebrate the occult experience that is everyday life and hearken the phrase, “If we have to explain, you will not understand.”

.

Tuhkankantajat (Previously MAA) (FI)

“And all of this said the same thing, all of it expressed what was in the musician’s soul: longing, a most intimate atonement with the world and a violent wrenching loose, a burning hearkening to one’s own dark soul, an intoxicating surrender and a deep yearning for the fountain of wonder and beauty.”

Tuhkankantajat (previously known as MAA) was officially formed on Spring Equinox 2009, although its foundations were established earlier. The center of the group consists of figures from divergent musical backgrounds and (sub)cultures:A.A.Cederberg (Halo Manash), M.I.Pöyhönen (Pyhä Kuolema) and R-M. Salo (Pimentola). They are in turn aided live and in the studio by various colleagues, including Fredrik Löf and cellist Antti Hyvärinen, as well as John Murphy (Knifeladder, Shining Vril, Death In June, ad infinitum).

Their debut album, MAA: Tuhkankantajat (English: “Bearers of Ash”), was recorded by Antti Haapapuro (Halo Manash, Aural Hypnox) in his analogue studio Katajan Kaiku, and released on CD by the Finnish label Anima Arctica. The album is a synthesis of diverse musical styles and influences, ranging from lounge to post-industrial folk, from pop to ambient, and yet all the while creating a holistic work of singular vision and voice. The approach to sound evokes a different time and place, one of lush warmth and presence, one that perhaps harkens back to some past decades, in contrast to the crass and bland trends of today’s music industry. Recorded with analog reel-to-reel tape technology, and using a setup consisting of acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drums, cellos, trumpets, pianos and Fender Rhodes, the result is a rich sonic palette to immerse oneself in, a tapestry of sound to soothe one’s soul. Sung in their mother-language of Finnish, the tracks of Tuhkankantajat are spiritsongs for a soulless age, as they express and ruminate on the core aspects of Man and Life: joy and sorrow, victory and surrender, love found and lost, and the eternal longing for the soul’s true homeland.

Tuhkankantajat played their first live concert in their hometown of Helsinki, Finland, in August 2011, opening up for Blood Axis; their second live performance took place at the Darkland Fire II Festival in Rakvere, Estonia, in December 2011.

Currently Tuhkankantajat are working on material for their second full-length album, as well as planning live performances.

Velnias

Vradiazei

Waldteufel

Waldteufel (Forest Devil) is an archaic folk project founded by Markus Wolff while he was still in the dionysian percussion / performance group Crash Worship. It has existed since 1995 and at the beginning included Annabel Lee whose violin and viola performances and arrangements gave the first album Heimliches Deutschland its unique character. After that, Wolff produced some songs on his own until he found a worthy cohort in Tyrsson. Together, they produced the two following albums, Sanguis and Rauhnacht, and embarked on playing a few noteworthy concerts, including the Flammenzauber Festival in Germany and a Wild Hunt performance at the Old Church in Portland. After a few quite experimental solo performances, Wolff more recently has resumed live activity with the help of two friends, Brian B. and Jason. They combine the emphasis on organic unusual percussion brought in from Jason’s project A Minority Of One, and the multiple talents of Brian on stringed instruments, harmonium and percussion – the new Waldteufel has come full circle to embrace a hypnotic and psychedelic sound verging at times on the shamanic.

Will O’ The Wisp

Will O’ The Wisp — the melancholic folk act out of Salem, Oregon, USA — fronted by the alluring Asia Moore on celtic harp, offers the high-class heartfelt sound still missing in the emerging Pacific NW folk circle. Leading up to and following the passing of her beloved mother last winter, Asia laid the foundations for the deeply impassioned hymns. Requesting the attendance of her long-time best friend Kyle Bagnall on acoustic bass, her younger sister Rowan Biskey on cello, and her lover Nate Myers on acoustic guitar, the tight-nit circle of enlisted members unfolded the dark lullabies in the most natural manner possible, forging a sad, yet hopeful, even epic and sometimes creepy sound. The group has released just one obscure demo thus far, though has performed with such acts as Aerial Ruin, Trail, and Callow. A proper album release is planned for late 2012/early 2013.

Wolvserpent

Wolvserpent, a project created by collaborators Blake Green and Brittany McConnell, manifested in 2009.

Wolvserpent’s focus is on creative expressions of spirituality, nature, and the occult. The duo’s music creates beautifully bleak visuals of the worlds we live in and the worlds we do not. Some of which are vibrant and full. Some that have long turned to dust and been drained of life. Both of which share equal beauty and terror. Within this music exists a forgotten but healing sanctuary. The opportunity to disappear from the fears and stresses of modern living and focus your strengths within, finding honesty, integrity, imagination, joy and the deepest of sorrows.

This musical expression moves us away from the instant gratification of the disposable music experience and takes us back to the realm of limitless time and possibilities of imagination. Moving away from the song and back to the album, an attempt to rejoin the ranks of theatre, film and visual art as an artistic genre that can provide a deeply spiritual and a broad ranged emotionally connecting experience.

Confirmed artists: