SAID THE SUN TO THE MOON

A concept album of gorgeous folk music inspired by the four seasons and Tirill Mohn's long-standing connection to Rudolf Steiner and the Waldorf educational model, we have here a journey through the Nordic year beginning with Autumn and ending with a late summer sunset (or sunrise) in which Tirill employs, adapts, or re-forms known poetry and song lyrics to fit her vision and mood. The four seasonally titled "interlude" songs, "Autumn," "Winter," "Spring," and "Summer," manipulate the words of Steiner himself, while other more full-bodied songs are adaptations of works by the likes of Nick Drake, Mark Strand, Patric Crotty, and Kathleen Jessie Raine.

01 "Autumn" (1:13) strongly plucked concert harp with the whispery voices of Tirill Mohn and other female soprano, Julie Kleive, open the album with their poetic introduction. (5/5)

02 "Clothes of Sand" (3:08) acoustic guitar and, later, cello, support Tirill in this Nick Drake song. Female vocals harmonize below Tirill during the chorus. Viola and/or violin join the cello beneath the second verse. Like singing with a string quartet. Wow! (9/10)

03 "Under the Harvest Moon" (2:14) harp and Tirill and other voices. A traditional folk song that sounds as if it could be an Andreas Vollenweider Christmas song. (4.5/5)

04 "Winter" (1:58) two harps dancing slowly around each other before Tirill and the beautiful soprano voice of Julie Kleive join in, also singing in tandem as if circling around one another. Stunning! (5/5)

05 "Under the Small Fire of Winter Stars" (2:26) bowed stringed instrument and folk percussives provide the mood accompaniment for Tirill's campfire story-version of this Mark Strand poem. Evocative! (4.5/5)

06 "To the Realms of the Spirit" (3:17) acoustic guitar and other harp and/or lyre (?) duet with bass and Lithuanian zither ("kankl's"). No voices or lyrics despite its inspiration coming from the words of Rudolf Steiner. Very pretty. (8.5/10)

07 "Spring" (1:16) harp and folk madrigal Tirill (and Julie). (4.25/5)

08 "Shapes of a Dream" (4:05) in her breathiest, most knee-buckling voice Tirill sings (with accompaniment from vocalist Marte Bj'rkmann) over a guitalele. A bit of a Judy Collins melody haunts the listener as does the gentle pastoral mood set by the beautiful work of the musicians. (10/10)

09 "Said the Sun to the Moon" (3:09) Tirill and soprano vocalist, Julie Kleive, sing together while harp and lyre (two harp tracks?), guitar, bass play in support on this Kathleen Jessie Raine lyric. Very nice chordal structure from the instrumentalists between the vocal verses. Prog folk does not get better than this! (10/10)

10 "Summer" (1:34) harp supports the now-familiar duo of two female singers (Tirill and Julie, I presume). But wait, do I hear three vocal tracks working in harmony? (4.75/5)

11 "Beneath the Midnight Sun" (4:15) opens with the gorgeous male voice of Dagfinn Hob'k singing with the harp/lute accompaniment. Tirill makes her delicate presence known with occasional harmonized vocals (more as the song goes on). There is an eerie edge to this song--not unlike some of the pagan folk songs of the German band FAUN. Violin joins in during the third minute as does traditional folk Hardanger fiddle. Based on a lyric by Patric Crotty, this is an amazing song--my favorite on the album and one of my favorite songs of 2019! It has all of the qualities of a timeless classic. (10/10)

12 "Iridescent Horizon" (4:34) opens with long-sustaining synthesizer-like treated electric guitar notes floating into the sky like cinders rising from a campfire. Joined by delicately played folk guitar and then Tirill's spoken voice reciting some poetry--poetry evoking beauty and wisdom. The "infinite" guitar is awesome! What an amazing end to an amazing musical journey! I feel bathed, washed, cleansed, refreshed, renewed, revitalized, and reborn! (9.5/10)

One of the most beautiful, enrapturing albums I've ever heard, flowing seemlessly, sucking the listener in from its first notes and then spitting one out at the end limp yet refreshed. Like Sirens enticing and entrapping sailors on the Mediterranean, the vocal duet arrangements and performances of Tirill and Julie Kleive are stunning and totally beguiling. The use of traditional folk instrumentation throughout is also planned meticulously and pulled off flawlessly.

A/five stars; a masterpiece of prog folk and one of the best albums of 2019 and one of the finest prog folk albums of all-time.

By this point, the idea of a female folk singer writing songs about nature is virtually a clich', but it's hardly surprising that it would take an intelligent artist like Tirill Mohn to actually deliver something truly thought-provoking and significant with the concept. A member of Norwegian symphonic group White Willow a lifetime ago, Tirill has released several sublime prog-folk solo releases over the past fifteen-plus years, but `Said the Sun to the Moon' is perhaps her most intimate, precious and thought-provoking work to date.

In her own words, `Said the Sun...' is Tirill's ode to `the shift of the seasons, to the beauty of nature in all its phases, and to the human heart that wanders along with it.' Not a concept album as such, rather a themed collection where each side of vinyl covers two seasons, she presents a series of gentle folk tunes, spoken word interludes, delicate instrumentals, sensitive covers and evocative sound-collages with the help of several musical acquaintances, but it's her wistful and compassionate voice that constantly shines front and center throughout.

`Autumn's restrained trickles of harp make for a pretty little opener, but it's Tirill's stark retelling of Nick Drake's `Clothes of Sand' that couldn't be in better hands. All the sensitivity and aching longing she always conveys so impeccably on her works carries this mournful lament, and the groaning cello, weeping violin and a raw urgency to Tirill's acoustic plucks perfectly capture the words of pining to be with a passed love. The most delicate wisps of her exquisite multi-part harmonies then flit around the gentle breeze that is her take on traditional English folk tune `Under the Harvest Moon'.

After `Winter's haunting gothic ballad, Tirill's reinterprets American poet Mark Strands' `Lines for Winter' as a low-key aural collage of acoustic drones, chilly distortion and tolling chimes, retitled to `Under the Small Fire of Winter' and urging the listener to find traces of hope, renewing spirit and hope through the cold of disillusionment and disappointment. But it's instrumental `To the Realms of the Spirit' that reveals true magic, where the most sweetly swooning violin and acoustic guitar weave an endless world of romance together, making for a fanciful and endlessly beautiful way to close out the first side of the LP.

`Spring' teems with the promise of sprightly new life, the delicately touching `Shapes of a Dream' is an elegant acoustic ballad that drifts to heavens of longing and pensive reflection on Tirill's gently cooing sighs, and `Said the Sun to the Moon', setting Kathleen Jessie Raine's poem `Changes' to a dreamy, almost medieval-tinged backing is a metaphorical musing on the inevitable cycle of change that affects all living things.

After `Summer' (another brief interlude that, like all the season titled pieces that popped up on this LP before it, offers interpretations of meditative verses found within Austrian philosopher Rudolof Steiner's contemplation of nature, `The Calendar of the Soul'), `Beneath the Midnight Sun' reminds that all the ballads Tirill duets with a male singer on, in this instance longtime vocal collaborator Dagfinn Hobæk, are always wonderful highlights of her solo discs. But closer `Iridescent Horizon' is the most special moment, being an all-original poem of intangible, dream-like imagery by Tirill, blessed with a transcendent aural backing. Her increasingly breathless recitation purrs through delicate slivers of ethereal guitar strains, and the entire piece unveils a shimmering, vivid ambiance.

This is the kind of quietly ambitious musical undertaking that encourages the listener to conduct their own further research into the influences and inspirations found within it, and yet, all the while, it's wrapped in sweetly reflective tunes that take time and endless listens to properly appreciate, and to discover how deceptively multi-layered, subtly complex and richly expressive the whole suite is. Rife with surreal lyrical imagery delivered vocally with restraint, careful thought and a joyful affection for life and all its natural beauty, `Said the Sun to the Moon' is another artistic musical triumph from the defiantly original folk artist that is Tirill.

Five stars for prog-folk lovers.

Tirill Mohn is back with her fourth solo album, a concept/thematic piece which provides twelve songs dedicated to the shift of the seasons, 'to the beauty of nature in all its phases and changes, and to the human heart that wanders along with it, moon after moon, lifetime after lifetime.' Commencing with 'Autumn', each season has three songs as she works through the year. This is a somewhat unsuual album in that all instruments are stringed, with no percussion. The music is layered, and while there are plenty of mandolins and guitars there are also violins, cellos and harps. It takes the listener on a journey, with wonderful vocals, harmonies and songs, and the darkness of reality seems so far away indeed.

Released in 2019, this album had been six long years since 'Um Himinjǫ'ur' and one can only hope that the next one comes around far more quickly, as this is a work of some importance. The delicacy and space between the instruments is huge, and one can imagine a small group of friends sat together in a room smiling at each other as they weave the spell. There is a na've charm to some of these, which sounds almost as if they have come out of the Sixties when the world was still innocent, and not from the far more bombastic and plastic world of the current day. It is sheer beauty, possibly something more and certainly nothing less.

I often like to play music at the end of the night, and in order to give my weary ears and brain a rest from playing music I have yet to to review, I often turn to old favourites such as 'Snow Goose' to see out the day. However, this album is such a delight that I have found myself turning to it time and again not because I need to play it more to be able to write some words, but just because I have been enjoying it so much and it relaxes me each time I hear it. Whether this music is described as progressive acoustic, New Age ambient, Celtic or alternative folk, all I know is that it is a delight from beginning to end. Her voice captures me, and combined with the music takes me to places I want to discover, and when playing this on headphones the rest of the world just disappears and I am entranced.