Songs:
1. Veil of Mist - 2. Northern Seas - 3. Spring Maiden - 4. Song of Rig - 5. Thor's Journey - 6. Dans för Loki (Loki's Jig) - 7. Odin the Wanderer - 8. Baldur - 9.Valkyrja - 10. Ragnarök - 11. The Rainbow Bridge
As much as I desperately wanted to, I was never one to write in a journal, much to my dismay. Still, my mind seems to retain places and events, from different periods of my life. I can remember what I was feeling when I spoke lines from a certain play, or the sounds and colors surrounding me inside a particular soundstage. Such was my other life, which revolved around acting. Eventually, music was to become my unwritten journal. Music and ideas that blossomed while driving across France or standing on the Normandy coast, watching the horizon over the ocean, became my journal. Even in years past, standing inside the 2,400 year old Temple of Diana in Cefalú, Sicily, musical landscapes began to form.
Album projects now seem to come to life from the pages of books, fairy tales, poetry, and travel and become the music I create while at the same time journaling my life’s events. An artist’s life experiences are woven together to become creative events that in turn grow into a project that chronicles the artist’s journey. As in past projects, it is the concept that chooses me, rather than the other way around. And so, the myths and legends of the Norse became an album project before I had much time to think it over.~
Through a Veil of Mist the music carries the listener on a journey filled with echoes from the past. Long lost myths tell of a forgotten time and place ruled by nature and ancient deities. Such are the myths of the timeless Northern Seas…
Among the tales told through ancient myths, one that features prominently and captured my imagination was that of I∂unn, the Spring Maiden. I∂unn was known as the goddess of youth and magical apples – a fruit that nurtured the gods and preserved their youth. When the trickster god Loki causes I∂unn’s disappearance, the youth of the gods begins to fade. As with many myths, this paradigm can be found throughout history, for example in the story of the Greek goddess Persephone, who travels to the underworld, leaving in her wake a world where winter holds life in its grasp.
Rig (Song of Rig), also known as Heimdall, is inspired from a complicated myth but one that again resonates through the chambers of time. In this partially preserved story, the origins of ancient social structures are mapped out – but what truly resonated for me in this myth is how much we all have a deep need to understand our origins, regardless of who we are.
An important central figure in any discussion of ancient northern mythology is Thor, known as the god of thunder. In Germanic mythology, Thor travels with Loki to Utgard (Thor’s Journey), the land of the giants, to join them at their table, in a chariot drawn by two goats. Many things struck me about Thor in this tale. I had always thought of him as a mighty warrior, but here is a gentle, nurturing - albeit temperamental god.
The trickster god Loki (Loki’s Jig) can manifest in many forms, sometimes as a helper to the gods, often as one to cause great mischief and problems to their cause. Again, this archetype is common in many ancient mythologies. I chose to concentrate on Loki’s lighter side and this evolved into the jig you hear in this album. As with Loki himself, the song was tricky, but evolved into something wonderful that I was not expecting.
O∂in (O∂in the Wanderer) is considered the father of the gods and ruler of Asgard, their mythical home. Clearly, no album depicting Norse mythology could do without his presence. O∂in is associated with magic, inspiration and poetry. He is also known for his unrelenting quest for wisdom. Leaving my homeland at an early age, and having traveled much since, the image of the wanderer and the quest for wisdom resonate profoundly within me.
As O∂in is known for his wisdom, Baldur was considered the most beautiful and beloved of the gods. He is associated with love, happiness, light and beauty. Because he had dreamt of his own death, his mother Frigg made every object on earth vow never to hurt him. All objects made this vow except for mistletoe, which Frigg considered unimportant. Since the gods knew no object could hurt Baldur, their new pastime became throwing objects at him, which would bounce right off without hurting him. However, Loki, aware of Baldur’s one vulnerability, made a spear of mistletoe and gave it to Baldur’s blind brother, who then inadvertently killed him. Baldur’s death is told as such a sorrowful event that it is said that even the rocks wept. His death is a harbinger of Ragnarök, the demise of the gods.
The Valkyrja is one of a group of goddesses whose task is to choose warriors lost in battle and take them to Valhalla, the afterworld. For me, this song speaks of power, but a power from within, in a sense an inner Valkyrja, manifested through the difficult life choices we must all make in our own quest, that in turn make us stronger.
The demise of the gods is an event known as Ragnarök. Baldur’s death, which precipitated this downfall, translates into the ultimate battle between good and evil. While Ragnarök was the last song I composed for this project, I knew that it would not be the last song on the album as I had already composed the Rainbow Bridge with that intention. I also cannot escape the haunting feeling, as I see the degradation of our planet’s environment, that we may be facing our own ecological Ragnarök.
The Rainbow Bridge, also known as Bifröst, is a bridge which unites our world to Asgard, the realm of the gods. While the Norse myths, much like many a Shakespearean tragedy, do not really end well, I chose to spin this a little and end the album on a note of hope. This song was especially poignant for me due to the loss of my 23 year-old nephew to Leukemia soon after the release of my third album Scheherazade. During that year, I saw many around me who left this world and others who were fighting to stay.
As with my previous projects, this album, inspired by the intensity and beauty of Norse mythology, became a very powerful artistic journey of self-discovery. The feeling of the ancient past and an ever constant present managed to merge within this work, once again, marking another chapter in my musical journal.~
This CD is housed in a DigiPack case, printed with vegetable based inks on recycled paper and board stocks.