Michael Cashmore
Sleep England

M. Cashmore, "Sleep England", Durtro, 2005.

A vague, languid scent of decay hovers over this most delicate platter (but the Platters were black, though well versed in white bon ton). At twilight, the lands of the west turn to what fate destined for them: even to the inevitable devolution of the lineages of rulers.

"Sleep England" was released by the exquisite, but measuredly national socialist, Albion multi-instrumentalist, M. Cashmore, already a collaborator with numinous figures of neofolk such as D. Tibet (author, with his Current 93, of the seminal "Thunder Perfect Mind" [1992: we keep the enigmatic double edition in an ivory shrine] and the moving, grand "Sleep Has His House" [2006]), the degenerate D. Pearce (no need to list the fundamental releases of his DIJ) and the Scottish witch and backing vocalist R. McDowall, who has traversed with mischievous innocence the aesthetic drifts of bubblegum rock, bedroom goth, and post-industrial entertainment.

We are facing, in this case, a chamber neofolk work (better, a neo-romantic parlor piece, but absolutely not "engagé") released in 2005: when everything was still possible. The tones are muted, vaguely melodramatic, on ethereal carpets of auroral reveries and ambiguous lateness. Here, the redundant silences matter more than the whispered notes, the interplay of interruptions more than the barely complete melodies. We are not, of course, on the levels of Cashmore's two "magnum opuses" under the "Nature and Organization" moniker: the sublime "Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude" (1994) and the unrefined, yet equally lavish, perhaps more so, "Death in a Snow Leopard Winter" (1998), recently brought together into a meritorious work of steadfast philological recovery. The packaging of the album in question is sparse yet precious, which we picked up in Berkeley among swarms of vagrants and ruffians of every kind: a faintly floral cover motif is countered inside by some sober participation, the tracklisting in classic characters, and the impeccable orthodox ascetic effigy of Cashmore. Dominated by purple and its shades: a confirmation of the mournful, yet delicately transcended, aura that envelops the mists of the CD: all played out in chiaroscuro rendered through a well-monitored electric guitar and a subtly searing accordion.

"Twilight Empire" manages to paint an impressionistically imaginal picture in three accords, repeated with a wholly boreal grace. The northern light fades into the fateful storms of steel. Some affected reverb turns the terrifying vision of the ruins of the West melancholic, the last and most gross manifestation of which are the floods of foreigners that plague our Europe: to which Cashmore rebels, inviting an entirely internalized revolt. The twilight of the empire must be transmuted into an occasion of enchantment.

"I Killed Dusk": a title which is a martial program for metapolitical elites. Once again, a transcendently plucked guitar releases an intimate refrain that contributes, with the protection of a post-eventum paganized St. George, to the suppression of the miasmic Dragon. Kill without hate, J. Evola advised: and Cashmore becomes the executor of the legacy of the antimodern bard, without any hesitation.

"Dream England" is a further piece in the mosaic of neo-romantic stratifications. A nearly noetic central digression induces contemplation of the colossal defeat. The piece ends in a whisper, as if it were to continue in a parallel dimension: which perhaps it did.

"Broken Seas" is the neglected offspring of the album: a kind of throwaway "outtake," without much sense but with a completely eucatastrophic grace. Thule thanks, from an alcove that is the last threshold of any wrongly misplaced hope:

I took one Draught of Life—
I'll tell you what I paid—
Precisely an existence—
The market price, they said.

"If We Knew Silence" is, from the title, a radical and coherent declaration of intent. The entire piece is played out between a nearly playful alternation of central theme and pauses, with the latter dominating the inflections of an unintelligible fate. If God is sound, God reveals Himself in silence. God is silence.

"The Way They're Found" continues the metadiscourse on the "ennui" unleashed by unrelated cogitations. Untraceable theme: we are facing a stylistic exercise, approaching the satisfaction of the non-conformist, contemplative, agonizing over its fatal setback.

"Passed to Snow" could constitute the sonic commentary of a C. Bronte novel. Barely hinted guitar verses lead one to wonder where, once again, the riff is. The overall architecture of the piece is skeletal, bloodless: but the philological restoration of the sound spectrum is applause-worthy. Splendid hermeneutic opening in the middle. There is a brilliant disproportion between the very meager means and the dazzling message for every European of good blood.

"Eight White Stars" appears to be a devoted oration to Indo-Aryan, hence auspicious, stars. Here, the frontal opposition between hyperboreans and Ethiopians becomes explicit, and yet the schtick starts to tire, at least musically.

Just as Morpheus's demon appears, here emerges from an almost unresolved crucible the masterpiece of the album: "Sleep England". It is, in a word, an elegy in death of the West, of which England is a problematic figure. The intro is most delicate, leading to the subsequent, mournful, dreamlike refrain, repeated almost infinitely in the well-highlighted contrapuntal guitar, almost as in an aria a bit démodé. Black sun effects elegantly close the track.

"Vernon Road" might seem from the title to be a slip into gloomy blues, the fatal music of the Adversary, but --thank the ethnic Gods of soil and blood!-- it is not. It continues the search for winsomely sparse and evocative themes, cascades of notes shaded by salubrious harmonics, and accords always, invariably, well understated. The clause is impressionistic and sudden, but not mawkish.

"Keepsake" makes us think of a painting by J. Shikaneder, the Prague painter of melancholy, reflected and returned in the bridges and taverns of Bohemia. A barely hinted at "climax" crowns a bare, linear phrasing of great Caucasian taste.

"Flowers Under Snow" reminds us that beauty is often hidden under layers of dazzling but deceptive debris. With three notes, Cashmore says nothing, but implies everything.

To the surprise of those who know to wait for the "kairos", the final reprise of the "Sleep England" theme closes this whispered, allusive metadiscourse almost devoid of spurious superstructures: but which leans towards the quiet integration of all anguishes into a lucid sadness that tugs at and reassembles our days as eternal losers in the recesses of time:

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

[…]

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.