Hawthonn - Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing) CD
The music of Hawthonn is dense and atmospheric, but not inaccessible.
Experimental electronic techniques fuse with doom-laden organ riffs,
crystalline piano, elemental drones and haunting vocals. Largely
guided by their own unconscious muse, the band’s chief inspirations
lie outside of music, in Romantic poetry, dreams and reveries,
esoteric symbolism, the history of magic and witchcraft, folklore and
the English landscape. Hawthonn is Leeds-based duo Layla Legard and
Phil Legard. Having previously collaborated in music, as well as text
and photography, they officially formed in 2014 to deepen their
uniquely imaginative approach to music-making. Often developing from
obsessive explorations of a particular theme, their work precipitates
dreams and imaginative journeys, which inform the direction of their
music. Their earliest music explored the afterlife mythos of Coil’s
Jhonn Balance through the image of the Hawthorn tree and Cumbrian
landscape where his ashes were scattered. Their approach draws
lyricism from the psychoacoustic phenomena of “phantom words”—sonic
textures translated from geographical space into droning sound
spectra, and verbalized dream imagery. The prime symbol of Red Goddess
(Of This Men Shall Know Nothing), is mugwort. An herb associated with
dreaming, travel and menstruation, mugwort particularly favors
edgelands: those abandoned, untended places, part man-made, part
rural, where nature begins to reclaim what humanity has left behind.
The music here unfolds a mandala of symbolism from these liminal
spaces, drawn from a web of fascinations which unfolded during the
recording process.
Experimental electronic techniques fuse with doom-laden organ riffs,
crystalline piano, elemental drones and haunting vocals. Largely
guided by their own unconscious muse, the band’s chief inspirations
lie outside of music, in Romantic poetry, dreams and reveries,
esoteric symbolism, the history of magic and witchcraft, folklore and
the English landscape. Hawthonn is Leeds-based duo Layla Legard and
Phil Legard. Having previously collaborated in music, as well as text
and photography, they officially formed in 2014 to deepen their
uniquely imaginative approach to music-making. Often developing from
obsessive explorations of a particular theme, their work precipitates
dreams and imaginative journeys, which inform the direction of their
music. Their earliest music explored the afterlife mythos of Coil’s
Jhonn Balance through the image of the Hawthorn tree and Cumbrian
landscape where his ashes were scattered. Their approach draws
lyricism from the psychoacoustic phenomena of “phantom words”—sonic
textures translated from geographical space into droning sound
spectra, and verbalized dream imagery. The prime symbol of Red Goddess
(Of This Men Shall Know Nothing), is mugwort. An herb associated with
dreaming, travel and menstruation, mugwort particularly favors
edgelands: those abandoned, untended places, part man-made, part
rural, where nature begins to reclaim what humanity has left behind.
The music here unfolds a mandala of symbolism from these liminal
spaces, drawn from a web of fascinations which unfolded during the
recording process.