Elli Riehl ‎– Das Brauen Der Feuerwolken

Elli riehl latest release introduce into the realm of spoken word-experimentalism. Still preserving their theatrical relations and dramatics. Kind of a revival from the traditions of old spoken stories told by the light of the blaze in the middle of the most fearful night. A real rescue from European customs and the way the knowledge was given from ancestors to new generations. The allegories within the tales are not that moral as the Grimm brothers were (at least not that set of morals) but more about understanding from the mysterious forces of nature and the dark nature of things. The listener is actually the child, hearing and learning about them, again.
The fairytales chosen, create vivid images of magic, woods and dark age landscapes while the listener recreates them helped by the excellent soundtrack at times morbid and creepy, at times romantically dark that serves as background for the voice.
The stories are told in German and a voice distortion effect was used, it feels like if the teller were some kind of magic creature with uncertain character; It’s an interesting effect that increases the tension step by step and submerges the listener in full attention on the story and the variety of effects it does trigger on.
There is a strong sense of deep germanic folkloric understanding, as well as hints of occultist knowledge, yet the clues about them are scarce and one can only speculate about the meanings and roots that supplement their artistic finality, these are beautiful and above all very well done. To complement all this mysterious source there’s also a evident psychedelic influence probably linked with the theme of witchcraft and ritualism (There’s an indication on this on the Alraun cd).
Musical accompaniments are rather simple, kind of chamber music with a modern twist, the results are awesome. A violin, a cello and a big drum that reverberates like waves of doom!
The use of the distortion for the voice has a negative aspect and that is that it takes some of its vitality and therefore diminishing a more forceful effect on the whole context, the voice lose shades, then at times it sounds identical and repetitive even if the pronunciation and declamation tries to give variety. The general conformation of the work is hard to tell, clearly it goes through dark ambient and spoken word but it has also a well conformed and most directly folk reference.
Additionally there’s two black metal type songs: “Galdr” and “Der Seid”. More around the ways of folkloric pagan black metal a la Burzum, Grimm or early Ulver, incredibly tasty and well made, obscure and pretty interesting. This dissonance with the ambient-spoken word thing has a violent effect, and adds more enigma to this work.
An additional bonus cd comes with the first 300 copies. “Alraun” is dark ambient, pagan and mystic music. Ritual witchcraft would be a suitable name to qualify this. Its pretty mysterious, and its effects and results, provocatively REAL.
Great effort. Prost for the dark side and the unknown that Elli riehl try to evocate!