Fern Knight

Fern Knight is the eponymous third full-length release. As the primary cover for Margaret Wienk's singing and songwriting, this record fully unleashes her style of melding acoustic and electronic sounds, her careful orchestration alongside the improvisational strengths of the quartet, well-placed strings and crystalline vocals. Displaying her classical roots and psychedelic leanings, Fern Knight will be released into the world by the VHF label on May 5, 2008. The new recording highlights the sonic cohesion of the quartet, featuring longtime member Jesse Sparhawk on harp and electric bass, Jim Ayre on Flying V and drums/percussion and noted Sun Ra scholar James Wolf on violin. The album was produced by Wienk, skillfully captured on 24-track analog tape by Greg Weeks at Hexham Head and mixed by Brian McTear at Miner Street Recordings. The calm surface of harp, cello and violin are juxtaposed against the perfectly timed distorted squalls of a Flying V with the grounding blanket of electric bass underneath. All throughout is a dark undercurrent of lyrical and vocal mystery. The overall effect is a lush and pastoral ode to all things living, a running theme that winds through the lyrics: "All is lost / and all will run / over graying ground / to the rays of the sun," sings Wienk in the album's closing track "Magpie Suite: Part III." The spirit conveyed on Fern Knight (vhf #110) is that of a beautiful green age in an apocalyptic landscape about to be laid to dust and its struggle to escape this end. Some of the songs depicting this green age on the album were written while in Ireland, "...We got stranded on one of the Aran Islands due to high seas. One day we amused ourselves by following the numerous and circuitous signs around the island pointing the way to the author Synge's Chair, a landmark; after a few hours of circling we gave up, never finding it, hence the song 'Synge's Chair,' which depicts our journey, the things we saw along the way and the conclusions we drew about the fate of said chair. I tried to stage it in a vaguely folkloric context and structured the song like a traditional folk tune with lots of verses telling a story." (Wienk)