Monday 7 January 2019

It’s January 7th! POUR A BUCKET OF WATER ON A MAN’S HEAD! (Then get back to work!)


January 7th is Saint Distaff’s Day!*
Traditionally this is the last day before we go back to work.
Men will burn the flax.
Women will soak them with water.
Then it’s back to work tomorrow!

*Please note Saint Distaff never existed. He was made up by weavers as an excuse to have one final party…

As the old hymn goes:
Partly work and partly play
Ye must, on St. Distaff's day;
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them;
If the maids a spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow.
Bring in pails of water then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give St. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good night,
And next morrow every one
To his own vocation


Tuesday 1 January 2019

Have you drunk "The Cream of the Well"?


Launch Day! The Wyrd Kalendar Album is Released



You can buy the album right here, right now...

WYRD KALENDAR

Released by Mega Dodo

Edited and curated by Chris Lambert
Mastered by Chris Sharp
Book written by Chris Lambert
Illustrations and artwork by Andy Paciorek
 
Available to buy from January 1st 2019 from Mega Dodo
CD and digital download
 
www.mega-dodo.co.uk
www.wyrdkalendar.blogspot.com
 
All profits from the sale of Wyrd Kalendar will go to Cancer Research UK.
 
Following the success of “Songs from the Black Meadow” in 2016 Mega Dodo and Chris Lambert are proud to present Wyrd Kalendar, a new Book and CD release. This will be released on January 1st the beginning of the next Wyrd year.
 
Wyrd Kalendar takes the year as its starting point weaving from dark and forgotten traditions stories and music to delight, disturb and escape into.
 
Artists from the England, Scotland, Ireland and Portugal were each given a month of the year and a story from the book (Wyrd Kalendar) as a starting point from which to create a vastly eclectic and evocative mix of genres that sweep from the worlds of Folk to Electronica via Psychedelic licks and lost Horror Soundtracks.
 
Each month is presented by a different artist.
January: Widow’s Weeds (lead by Grey Malkin formerly of The Hare and the Moon) give us their occult tinged hymn to that month in Song for January.
February: Electronic wizard Keith Seatman explores the strange world of the Three Day Girl forever doomed to experience the missing days of that truncated month.
March: Psych-Folk singer Emily Jones brings to life the words of her long dead ancestor in Waiting for Spring.
April: Psychedelic Queen of Spring - Crystal Jaqueline plays us all for fools as she goes Chasing the Gowk.
May: Ghost Box’s Beautify Junkyards charm us with their delicious and haunting May Day Eve.
June: Alison O’Donnell of Mellow Candle, Flibbertigibbet, Firefay and United Bible Studies teams up with David Colohan on her wasp celebration Deadly Nest.
July: Scarfolk collaborator and electronic ghost of Cold War Britain Concretismbrings to life A Fair by the Sea.
August: Icarus Peel explores lost love and yearning as he explores the words of the aching and humid The Weeping Will Walk.
September: Legendary Folk Rock duo Tir na nOg encourage us to raise a glass to Autumn with Columbine.
October: Wyrdstone explores the haunting rhythms of harvest in The Field.
November: The Soulless Party leave the Black Meadow to take us for a Dark November Drive.
December: The Rowan Amber Mill explore the darker side of Christmas with The Witch’s Lament.
The Year: The 13th track of the album is called Wyrd KalendarThe Mortlake Bookclub explore the world of the book and the year through their unusual aural game of Exquisite Corpse.
 
About:  Wyrd Kalendar – The Book
Open the Wyrd Kalendar and explore the year with eyes that are not your own…
 
Join Chris Lambert and Andy Paciorek as they guide you through the twelve months of the year weaving twelve tales of Magic, Murder, Terror, Love and the Wyrd.

Hold to the resolution in January…
Seek to do more with those missing days in February…
Avoid the madness of the March hare…
Become the fool in April…
Dance around Aunt May…
Protect and nurture the June bug…
Celebrate Grotto Day in July…
Fall in love and weep in August…
Let it all fall in September…
Prepare for the October harvest…
Avoid November sin…
Do not let December find you out…
 
“Gripping, sometimes terrifying but always surprising: this is the year described in the Wyrd Kalendar. Live it if you dare…” – Sebastian Baczkiewicz - Creator of BBC Radio 4’s “Pilgrim”
"There's a story here for all horror tastes, from the understated to the gruesome and everything in between."
"Those with a fondness for horror's rich folk heritage will find plenty to enjoy here, but what's most impressive about Wyrd  Kalendar is how both Lambert and Paciorek have captured the spirit and mood of each month in their storytelling."
"If you like your scare fare laced with imagination, surprise, and plenty of spine-tingling moments, I cannot recommend this enough." - Kieran Fisher - Scream Magazine Issue 49 July/Aug 2018 (pp 94-95)
 
About:  Songs from the Black Meadow (Released by MegaDodo 2016)
“Songs From The Black Meadow is a deeply involving and atmospherically congruent undertaking, swathed in the beckoning hauntology of the fictitious-or-is-it Black Meadow itself.” – Record Collector
“Here’s a legend for a new kind of perception.” – DME
“Songs From The Black Meadow is a well-realized, immersive concept that will pull you in, and never let you go. It serves as an additional soundtrack for some damn fine horrors, and also stands alone as a weird, supernatural journey all its own.” – forestpunk
“Sometimes frivolous, sometimes chilling, let this be your entrance into one of modern acid folk’s most pervasive myths.” – Goldmine Magazine
Copyright © 2018 Mega Dodo, All rights reserved