Fancy a little John Donne? I've been playing this for several years, actually -- one Halloween night back when I was a very amateur guitarist I wanted terribly to play something eerie and I had nothing in my repertoire, so I played this until it had the sort of melody I wanted. Recently it occurred to me that I had never actually recorded it.

He-ey, I have this SHINY NEW WIDGET now! Exciting, y/n?

Anyway, trying to get back into the swing of things -- I keep saying that, I know, but I lost my singing voice for about three weeks with a lingering cold, and MUSIC IS HARRRRD, and mostly I have been panicking and brooding about applying to Duquesne University and waiting for them to say SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and somewhere in the middle of this I turned twenty? What? It is all very peculiar. Am trying to BEAT the lyrics out of me; why are they so slow? So instead you get a rather unexpected sort of cover hearkening back to MY CHILDHOOD. Anastasia was my very favourite film when I was eight and this song has always tasted of magic to me. My obsession with the film as a wee lass led to a larger obsession with the Romanovs, and by extension, the Russian Revolution, and from there it was just a tiny leap to the general political upheaval of the early twentieth century and the First World War, and... my novel. Which, thus far, contains absolutely no mention of Russia whatsoever, but owes quite a lot to many childhood viewings of my Anastasia VHS all the same. So this is all rather dear to me.

Shiny things: discovered that you can, like, DOWNLOAD EFFECTS for Audacity. I KNOW. So that made me feel all proper-musiciany and fancy. Also there is a guest appearance from a tiny hand-cranked music box that the magnificent lady_moriel got me in England last Christmas and which I have been trying to find a song to fit in for an age. ♥

(Apologies for THE GIDDY; I may have had Excedrin recently CAFFEINE IS GREAT)

HEY YOU GUYS I HAVE AN ALBUM NOW

Er, let's try this a bit more professionally. I've just released my debut album: it's rather literally titled Seven Stories, and you can purchase it right now from Bandcamp. I am ridiculously excited about this and almost feel like a Grown-Up Musician (except for the bit where I've never actually played a real concert). It features re-recordings of several songs here, including a much lovelier version of "Priya Song", featuring Sarah Meholick of Six Impossible Notes on piano, that I am really quite proud of. There is also a brand new song, also featuring the marvellous Sarah, which is heavily inspired by Sarah Slean, Amanda Palmer, and Echo Bazaar.

(You may notice that none of the vampire songs are featured on this album. There is an extremely good reason for that, which will soon become apparent. ^-^) 

Thank you, all of you, for supporting me through this mad venture, and giving me the courage to do this. I never thought I would do this, much less that anything good or coherent would come of it, and yet here I am! You lot are amazing, and I am so grateful.

A few changes, dear listeners! Primarily that I will now be uploading my tracks to Bandcamp, which means that, excepting covers (the rights to which I do not own), there will be a mandatory dollar-or-more payment before you can download. Also it will all look much shinier and more professional, wot wot, and you can download the songs in a variety of formats, if you are so inclined, and listen before you do!

Also, as you can see on my Bandcamp page, I have got an album in the ready! The lovely Sarah of Six Impossible Notes is recording a mite of piano for me, and then we shall be all set. I've re-recorded several songs that I did in my pre-microphone days, and wrote a shiny new one, huzzah huzzah! (At least I hope it is shiny.) It should be finished very shortly.

Annnd I have a cover for you lot today, while I get my bearings again and work on some other things. (Was very inspired by my adventures at Merlefest, a folk music festival in North Carolina last week. Sarah Dugas of the Duhks and Phoebe Hunt of the Belleville Outfit are rocking my world right now!) This is one of my favourite songs in the world, and sort of a personal anthem/mission statement for life.

From a poem I wrote last summer, about night-bathing in Nova Scotia. I'm working on approximately three other things at the moment, none of which are behaving in the slightest, but last night something got into me and I started working this one out. That's art, I suppose: it never does what it's told. (That's also cats. Hmmm.)

This one's pretty autobiographical, for once.

My super-sexy smoky croon brought to you today by Sore Throats Anonymous.




Hey, guys? I'm going to be working a lot more on my music nowdays, and I'd really love to prove to my father that if I work at it, I am not settling by not having a "real" job. (You know, after the three hundred "real" jobs I applied to never called me back even after I went back three, four, five times for eight months. Yay small towns. Good grief, they're like bad boyfriends.) So... if you feel compelled, if you have a little extra change, donate, please. ♥

So, I've been working on this other song (a vampiretastic "Scarborough Fair", if you must know, and it's a little bit for lady_moriel cos she's awesome), but the lyrics just... aren't doing what I want them to, and it's been a week, and it's driving me insane, so I learnt to play one of my favourite songs by one of my very favourite songwriters in the meantime, so as not to leave us all hanging. Seriously. This song has made me cry more than once. Singing it is a little bit of a magical experience.

Sigh. What with holiday bustling and the Yuletide fic exchange and frantically writing essays and college applications, music sort of fell by the wayside. Sorry about that, guys. But here I am again, with a shiny new microphone courtesy of barefoottomboy, Patron of the Arts, which actually arrived, um, about half an hour ago, but I had to test it out -- so you get this song. It's a favourite of my father's, and I heard it sung as an encore at the Midnight Jam at Merlefest Bluegrass Festival by Phoebe Hunt of the Belleville Outfit and the girls of Bearfoot, and it practically gave me visions. I've been playing it for a while, so it was easy to slip into.

Huzzah, Christmas music time! I've been meaning to get on that for a while, actually, only I was having trouble with my voice (I don't even know, but it was horrible! I am always unhappiest when I can't sing), and the first song I tried to arrange failed spectacularly. Anyway, this is one of my favourite Christmas songs, for the tender, warm illustration of an archaic communal Christmas celebration: but I find most versions irritating as they are very bouncy. Which does not suit, think I. (This could also be, however, because the first version I heard was Neal & Leandra's, which is quiet and by-the-hearth warm.)

Also, a very special shout-out to barefoottomboy, who sent me an amazing set of bells: bells which make their musical debut here. Hurrah!



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If you download, please donate! 'Twould make my Christmas quite bright indeed. ^-^

'Tis the season for songs about death! --No, wait, that's business as usual for me. Um. Anyway, when I was fumbling around some time ago trying to find a song to sing during the dregs of the Week of Song, someone, I believe wanderlight, mentioned that they would love to hear my interpretation of this song. I had already come up with something when she suggested it, but it's been in the back of my head ever since, and a few days ago I started getting ideas for an arrangement, which I tried unsuccessfully to record while making pie. That did not work out, but I've spent all this evening playing with it and finally shaping it into something vaguely similar to my original idea.