Medwyn Goodall with Runestone - Druid II.nfo
GENERAL INFORMATION
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Album: Druid II
Artist: Medwyn Goodall with Runestone
Year: 2009
Genre: New Age / Electronic / Modern Classical / Ambient
DESCRIPTION
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Medwyn Goodall has really outdone himself here. This album is a neopagan masterpiece and will always be a favorite of mine, for ritual music, meditation background, and even just music to "live-by" on those nice, gently-lit cloudy days. Its darkness is mysterious and sacred, but not in any way threatening. We need more music like this.
I've often thought that teaming up with Runestone (whenever he does it) brings out the best in Medwyn's songwriting. Runestone tends to be more on the mellow and ambient side of pagan music, so Medwyn's unfortunate tendency to make with the pounding drums and wailing kazoo (or at least it sounds like a kazoo) has to be toned-down. This album has percussion about it, but it's very even. It almost reminds me of a heartbeat - maybe the "heartbeat of the Earth," like an even, consistent pulse of Earth-energy through the ley-lines or "dragon currents" of the planet. There isn't much in the way of bass, at least not in the sense of a stringed bass instrument (except in "The Sunwise Path"), but there *is* plenty of ambient, ethereal sound to cushion the crisper sounds. The latter include stringed instruments (I think there's either a mandolin or a 12-string guitar or both in some places) which are beautiful, pristine and resonant, without being twangy. It reminds me of rural countryside and the people who live there (which by the way is the original definition of "pagan") and the magick integral to their way of life. There's also some keyboard synth with a sharper, twinkling effect which adds a sense of mystery to this music. Then there are the sounds of almost-chanting voices, which sound somewhat Gregorian, and lend an even more sanctity and dignity to this portrayal of magickal culture. I would have done without the literal chanting of words, "dance with the sun... dance with the ocean... dance with the rain... dance again..." in the first song, but since it's so simple and repetitive, I don't find it too distracting.
A few closing notes: to really enjoy this album for every lovely sound included herein, don't just get the MP3 download from online. Don't get me wrong, that was my first experience of this album and it was fine (clearly I loved it anyway) but if you get the CD, even just a used copy for a discounted price, and rip copies in FLAC or WAV or some other lossless format, the full effect you'll get will blow your mind! In case you don't know, MP3 audio is encoded by stripping away at least three to four-fifths of the audio in the original recording as it occurs on the CD. That's a *massive* amount of sound you're missing, and in an immersive experience like Druid II, someone who really takes sound seriously really can't afford that loss. For another thing, no matter what you do, please don't enable rip-off sellers who list CDs like this one (which are still in print and not limited-edition or anything else to make them special) for forty, sixty, one-hundred-and-more dollars. It's a beautiful album, but it's still just a CD, and is worth twenty dollars at most. If you see someone hiking-up the price like that, do us all a favor and write them a message mocking their delusion.
Anyway, overall I give this album five stars. This will always be a favorite in my household. It truly does paganism justice. - ByBlacklightHaloon December 14, 2015
http://www.amazon.com/Druid-II-Medwyn-Goodall/product-reviews/B00030ESB4/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
FILE INFORMATION
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Number of Tracks: 8
Total Duration: 50:27
Total Size: 120 MBs (including scans, m3u, and nfo)
Parity Archive: Yes, 7%
Ripped By: NMR
Files Created on: NMR
Ripped With: NMR
Encoded At: 320k CBR / 44.1 KHz
ID3 Tags: Yes
NFO Created: 25 December 2015
Tracks
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01) Nine Maiden Chronicles - part 1
02) Nine Maiden Chronicles - part 2
03) Nine Maiden Chronicles - part 3
04) Full Moon Gathering
05) Where Pathways Meet
06) The Sunwise Path
07) The Circle Cast
08) Nine Maiden Chronicles - part 4
POSTING
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