It's Monday morning, October, 08:17 in the morning. Outside it is cold, dark and pouring with rain. Literally pouring! I find myself on the train, on my way to work, with a newspaper that tells me a cold front will pass over Holland and it will bring lots of rain during the whole day. Well, looking out of the window I can confirm that. Walking out of the station it gets even worse. Every single bucket of water that every single god of the pagan pantheon could find is thrown down right here, right now. So without any hesitation, I walk past my trusty bike and step right into the city bus, out of that waterfall of rain into the warmth of the bus cabin. As I get comfortable on the bus seat I put the Emian's new album in my Discman. And their music takes me deep into the magic of the Arabian desert. I can feel the hot wind rub my face as the sand dunes open up in my imagination. The contrast could not be bigger with the world outside my window. So I crawl even deeper into the corner of my seat and drift away in the warmth of Emian's ever-expanding musical world.
From the first album, Aquaterra up to, their third album Egeria, Emian has been on quite an interesting musical journey. You only have to look at the list of instruments they play on every CD to see it. On Aquaterra it is the 'common' Celtic folk instruments; Irish harp, fiddle, flutes, tin whistle, Irish bouzouki, and acoustic bass. On the Mediterranean pagan folk album Khymeia the band added castanets, hurdy-gurdy, and Persian santur. On Egeria we suddenly see a whole range of 'exotic' instruments. Medieval bagpipe, bombarda, a Greek Aulos, the ciaramella, a marranzano, the Tibetan horn, an Indian harmonium, the Algerian mondol and a bandola, all new instruments to the Emain sound. You can also see this journey back in the booklet as Anna Cefalo told me. In many ancient cultures the dragonfly, depicted on the sleeve art, stands for rebirth and transition. for Emian the dragonfly represents the transformation the band made from its birth to where the band is now. To my question, if the album title is also connected to that idea of transition Anna answered yes. Egeria is not only an ancient nymph, a Camena of the Roman
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From the first album, Aquaterra up to, their third album Egeria, Emian has been on quite an interesting musical journey. You only have to look at the list of instruments they play on every CD to see it. On Aquaterra it is the 'common' Celtic folk instruments; Irish harp, fiddle, flutes, tin whistle, Irish bouzouki, and acoustic bass. On the Mediterranean pagan folk album Khymeia the band added castanets, hurdy-gurdy, and Persian santur. On Egeria we suddenly see a whole range of 'exotic' instruments. Medieval bagpipe, bombarda, a Greek Aulos, the ciaramella, a marranzano, the Tibetan horn, an Indian harmonium, the Algerian mondol and a bandola, all new instruments to the Emain sound. You can also see this journey back in the booklet as Anna Cefalo told me. In many ancient cultures the dragonfly, depicted on the sleeve art, stands for rebirth and transition. for Emian the dragonfly represents the transformation the band made from its birth to where the band is now. To my question, if the album title is also connected to that idea of transition Anna answered yes. Egeria is not only an ancient nymph, a Camena of the Roman… Read More
