The Triple Tree
Ghosts

The discourse seems to pick up from the recent "Into the Woods," the latest solo album by the good Tony Wakeford. This work, which featured, alongside the iconic figure of the historical leader of Sol Invictus, the imposing presence behind the microphone of friend and collaborator Andrew King, an eccentric character resurrected from some forgotten era: "The Triple Tree" is thus the project in which the artistic partnership between Dr. Anthony Charles Wakeford and Reverend Andrew Stewart King comes to its fullest form, and "Ghosts" (published at the end of 2008) constitutes a work of high conceptual, as well as artistic value.

Wakeford has come a long way from the roaring days of Crisis, but in a sense, his march against the modern world has never stopped. Today, this march takes on a new form, emancipating itself from the world of runes and Evolian philosophy to reach the horrific settings of the gothic novella: "Ghosts" draws inspiration from the literary art of M. R. James, a well-known writer of ghost-stories and a scholar of medieval history. On one hand, it serves to celebrate their own beloved tradition (specifically, the English one), of which King appears to be a profound connoisseur; on the other, to penetrate, with nostalgia and passion, into a mysterious, magical, arcane world.

Even from a musical point of view, the most eloquent reference remains "Into the Woods," which seemed on one side to resurrect certain industrial suggestions inherited from the early albums of "Sol Invictus," and on the other to explore a more "traditionally folk" dimension, intimate, not yet contaminated by the apocalyptic temptations that have always characterized the classic sound of Sol Invictus.

But the beauty of "Ghosts," besides the rigor of the concept behind it, is found in its ability to gather and amalgamate the entire artistic world dear to Wakeford, and in particular the urges expressed over the last decade: therefore, in "Ghosts," we do not only find the unmistakable apocalyptic nature that has always characterized Wakeford's artistic sensibility, and perfectly articulated in the countless albums spewed from the gaping maw of his main band; in "Ghosts," we find the industrial asperities of the early works, a love for certain esoteric and ritualistic digressions never disowned, the ancestral and bucolic folk of the solo albums, the magnificence of the learned sound stratifications of L'Orchestre Noir, the experimental intuitions and jazz diversions sketched in an atypical work like "Thrones".

Amidst this chaos, we find King perfectly at ease, whose voice seems to come from the unearthed tomb of a dilapidated chapel, a place where a fascinating past full of light and shadows, unsettling presences, supernatural entities, and mysterious places, seems to lie and be preserved.

The heavy, baritone, harsh timbre; the outbursts of a proud and rebellious spirit, are a freefall into an abstract dimension, antithetical to the present: not empty epicity (as is so fashionable today), but a daring escape from contemporaneity aimed at recovering the anthropological roots that modern man seems to have lost in the meanders of a sterile and useless complexity.

The icy industrial explorations of Wakeford (also recognizable on bass, guitar, and in few, but significant, vocal incursions), the screeching in a chilling ambient electronics, the magic of the organ, keyboards mimicking the most varied instruments (bagpipes, winds, strings, etc.) do not clash, but rather miraculously marry with King's impassioned harangues, his arcane and mystical chants, the fatal blows of his percussion. Then there are the appearances of countless guests who ennoble a choral album, varied, full of contrasting suggestions, but perfectly aligned with the operation's intents: the bewitching voices of Kris Force ("Amber Asylum") and the Irish folksinger Autumn Grieve, the rolling of drums by veteran John Murphy ("Death in June," "Current 93" etc.), the violin strokes, cold as the autumn wind, by Renee Rosen (already seen around "Sol Invictus"), and more.

There is no point in dwelling on describing individually the thirteen episodes that make up just under an hour of the work; it is impossible to put into words the magic of certain passages, the taste of certain contrasts, the alchemy with which multiple and opposing suggestions (tragedy and farce continuously copulate, see also the funny photos that adorn the internal booklet) come together in a coherent and, though grotesque, fascinating journey: the whisper of the wind, the impetuous downpour of rain, the creaking of doors with rusty gears, the decay of old buildings, the desolation of a night sky illuminated by the pale light of the moon, the disturbing contours of stone crosses in a sinister cemetery scattered in the moorland, are the backdrop of sinister events and dark reflections, the stories of a population of ghostly presences, a chorus of voices in the darkness that evoke memories and traditions of a forgotten past.

"Ghosts" thus presents itself to our ears as a fine essay of literary rediscovery, a poetic and courageous escape from contemporaneity, as well as one of Tony Wakeford's best works ever who, after thirty-plus years of an honorable career, shows he still has something to say. And it is no coincidence that this is being said outside the confining and narrow boundaries of Sol Invictus.

Not to be missed!