scattergun

I’ve been digging through old masters, rousting the black eyed hopefuls and shunned shadows I’ll need to populate the upcoming collection for Fall of Nature. The track list is starting to come together. I even found one unreleased track I have no recollection of recording. If you have any requests, now is the time to make suggestions. I’ve also found a few things that won’t be included on the release because of length or whatnot that may end up here on the site.

I had a title pretty well formulated. The title of Joseph Pulver, Sr.’s recently announced novel is remarkably similar to what I had in mind. I will defer to Mr. Pulver, encourage you to read his words, and go back to the well. Seriously, read some Pulver.

A story that was under consideration with an anthology for the last several months has been returned to the pen. The anthology was canceled, which is too bad. I was looking forward to reading whether I made the final cut or not.

More soon, probably.

Envenomist – Bound Dominions

David Reed continues to be one of my absolute favorite dark experimental composers. He was kind enough to send me a copy of the latest release from his project Envemonist. David’s other projects include the venerable Luasa Raelon mentioned here previously.

Bound Dominions moans with heavy analog synth ambient. The whole album resonates with a primordial ache. Rotting ghost ships in the fog, fields of gurgling earth and steam, lost places swallowed by vegetation and the reverence and sorrow such sites evoke in a quiet landscape.

It reminded me, quiet eloquently, of something I wrote stuck on a train somewhere between Portland and Seattle about 6 years ago. This was originally written as preliminary lyrics for a project that was not to be. I will post it here unedited as this is the most appropriate home that has arisen since then…

“Crawl to the cadence of 100,000 crows, carving the sun to rags above the geometry of industry… axis and allies draw together against a wheezing tribe on another barren hill, where serpents dance with battle blades to defend their nightmare lives from their nightmare graves. The old ones, naked, survey from crooked frames at the slavering pests hooded in spiteful names. A sullen dignity – aspirations drained above root work recoiling from the kaleidoscopic air. Legions gaze over aeons to the wounded and the dead, of the clan born of time that time then shed… momentary domination of despotic ecology. Braying, cackling, screaming nonsense against the turning leaves… Between the lines of  history’s soliloquy fractured though it is, the tyrants right their broken spines and draw the hulks beneath the soil…”
- Scott E. Candey (2005 -ish) -

OSS: “The World More Full Of Weeping” by R.J. Wiersema

The World More Full of Weeping by Robert J. Wiersema

I picked this up based on the title, a reference to a Yeats poem, “The Stolen Child.” The World More Full Of Weeping falls somewhere between a long short story and a novella.

The story follows a young boy from a fractured, loving family as he seeks solace and freedom in the expansive woods behind his house. In the woods, he’s befriended by a young presence who reveals the mysticism of the forest to him. The relationship between the boy and the presence develops like two children slowly becoming best friends. It’s natural and well done.

The mystic parts of the woods are handled simply, focusing on beauty and appreciation rather than throwing back the veil and revealing a wild phantasmagoria. I liked that, that discretion runs through the whole tale.
When the boy fails to return home a search is undertaken and his father  realizes he’d also been befriended by the presence in his youth.

I’m not going to get into the ending, but to say it was multi-layered and satisfying. This is a simple tale of guilt and loss and wonder, made rich by Wiersema’s character development, setting and eloquent prose.

I spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid in a town not terribly unlike the one in this story. It held a certain nostalgia for me that could only be conjured by someone who had the same intimate knowledge of those places and the people that populate them. To that end, this volume also includes an essay exploring how fictional environments become doppelgangers of their real counterparts.

I snagged this for an afternoon read on the Kindle and discovered a writer I will keep an eye on going forward.