Dream of the Blue Moth – Sylvi Alli

www.verticalpool.com

 

This for me is one of more exciting finds of recent months.

 

Dream of the Blue Moth is a compilation of neo-gothic folk songs, originally, in fact, intended for the screen, The screen in fact, of film producer Antero Alli, Sylvi’s Finnish husband whose films sound as though they could be a dark and highly subversive alternativer to most of the saccharine Hollywood fare that is on offer.

 

The opening tracks, Invocation and Outside Woman, could have been something straight out of the Weird Sisters from Macbeth and the album closes with the almost petulant declarations of doom so typical of Janusz in the earlier Engelsstaub albums. Other gothic influences suggest Dead can Dance or Love is Colder than Death, but without the latter’s tedious tendency of lapsing into vapid industrialisms. There is quite an ethnic mix to some of the songs – for instance, the album features a Russsian ballad on 12 with Peri’s Song, where Sylvi sings in Russian. There is also and almost-forgetten rendition of a medieval folk song on track 6 with Salve Virgo Viginum, though it sounds much more like a hymn.

 

Considering that Dream of the Blue Moth is a compilation of songs taken from different films, the album as a whole has considerable unity of mood and atmosphere. Definitely one for those gothic theme nights of candle light and mystery…..well recommended.