Wolcensmen
Fire In The White Stone

“Synesthesia (from Greek sýn «together, with» and aisthánomai «I perceive, I understand»; thus «I perceive together») is a rhetorical device, mostly with a metaphorical effect, which consists of associating in a single image two words or two discursive segments related to different sensory spheres”. But it is also “a sensory/perceptual phenomenon, indicating a "contamination" of the senses in perception. The neurological phenomenon of synesthesia occurs when stimulations coming from a sensory or cognitive pathway induce automatic and involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.”
There is an album, eleven songs, a different “mood” for each of them, but with a story that ties them together, a common thread. And there are the listener's emotions, their memories, the images that surface once they close their eyes and let themselves be submerged in the music. There are the tastes, the smells, the sensations that come back to life with perhaps a stronger force than they had when first savored.
These eleven pieces carry the scent of the English countryside after it has rained, a scent you never thought you would find in your garden, especially if you live in a country that isn’t the United Kingdom… Yet the valley overlooking your fence, the freshly sown land, the newly planted flowers, everything smells like those open fields leading to nowhere that embraced you once you left the English village.
Another scent, that of burnt wood. Out here, right now, a farmer is burning some underbrush, dead leaves, and dry branches, but with your eyes closed and the right music in the background, you are back in the Cotswolds, wandering at dusk through the cobblestone lanes that wind between houses where the fireplaces are being lit, and the chimneys are spreading the invigorating scent of burning wood into the air.
The morning fog, while you are still sleepy outside walking the dog, and the church bells in the distance, remind you of when you would wake up in the morning, look outside and see the countryside around you still cloaked in that thin mist, ethereal and almost otherworldly. Opening the window, a thin layer of that fog would settle on your hand, and its cold and damp touch would envelop you with positive and sparkling vital energy. The village bell tower would strike eight, and at the same time, your nose would catch the typical invigorating scents of the English breakfast cooked by the landlady, a lady so sweet she could have been your aunt.
And so on, between one memory and another, between a scent and a sensation, you reach the end of this album, and it feels like you have truly traveled.
“Fire in the White Stone” is the third effort after a full album and an EP for Dan Capp and his solo creation Wolcensmen: our artist is also a guitarist for Winterfylleth, a band with which, it's useful to confirm, there continue to be connections especially if we examine the acoustic album “The Hallowing of Heirdom”. The solutions chosen by Dan are the same as in previous episodes, thus arpeggiated guitars, winds, percussion, string instruments like cello or kantele, synths, and choirs, for a genre broadly attributable to the neofolk and ambient traditions. This time Wolcensmen has created a framework that brings together the various pieces, a short story that narrates the adventures of a young man who decides to abandon the comforts of his life to embark on an adventurous and fairytale-like journey of education that will lead him to encounter creatures of almost Tolkien-like mold or belonging to British folklore, all part of the imagery dear to our Dan. The sense is to be transported to a timeless, fairy-tale, and medieval-like era, a world perfectly outlined by Wolcensmen with its complete and absolutely coherent genesis. Thus, the distinctive traits of Capp's poetics remain, that sweet and proud love for his Land and his roots, but this time they are enriched with fairy-tale and fictional elements, capable of giving greater strength and credibility to an album that was already musically solid and engaging in itself.
“Fire in the White Stone” is highly recommended for those who love folk and ambient sounds. Maybe it is less impactful than the still unsurpassed “Songs from the Fyrgen”, probably because it requires more listens to be fully understood: it is therefore better if the listening is accompanied by the texts reporting the story at the base of the concept. In any case, it is a confirmation for Wolcensmen, a proof of maturity for the artist, and a journey into the emotions and memories of anyone who decides to listen to this album.