Ledgerwake by Bartermarch

# LEDGERWAKE

We never expected to capture the fever-dreams of Ashen Pike's market rows quite like this.

*Ledgerwake* started as simple field recordings beneath the awnings, our instruments barely audible over the clash of bargaining voices and rattling coin purses. But something strange happened when we set up near the Market Green at dusk. The melodies began to mirror not just the transactions around us, but the unseen currents flowing beneath them – the doubts, the rivalries, the unspoken feuds between guild factions.

This album plunges into that space where commerce meets consciousness. Where a merchant's anxious dawn calculations become "Tally at First Light," and the tense standoffs between rival Ledgerhands and Fairweights erupt in hammered dulcimer skirmishes and shawm declarations. We've let the raw sounds of the marketplace – barrow wheels creaking, copper trays clinking, even the authoritative strike of the Arbiter's Tally – weave through our traditional instrumentation.

We still laugh about the day we recorded "Sashes and Feuds." Two rival spice traders nearly came to blows over a disputed weight measure, and we caught the whole rhythm of their argument – the rising tension, the crowd gathering, the sudden intervention of the Arbiter. That exchange shaped the track's fierce percussion and aggressive dulcimer patterns.

For "The Gleaner's Shadow," we followed the night collectors through the empty market stalls after closing, recording the eerie echoes of their whispered transactions. The bowed psaltery on that track still gives us chills.

From the cautious hope of daybreak to the resolute finality of "Balance Settled," *Ledgerwake* traces not just a day at market, but the emotional journey of those who live by the bargain. The suspicion, the calculation, the occasional hallucination when hunger and heat mix with ambition.

We've hung our patchwork banners between Medieval Ambient, Dark Folk, and something altogether more feverish. If you've ever stood amid the chaos of commerce and felt something ancient and strange stirring beneath the ordinary exchanges of coin and goods, this music is for you.

Come haggle with us. The price is fair, and the merchandise? Unforgettable.

Weathered lutes & market rhythms stir memories of forgotten trades. Our dulcimers echo merchant calls across time—barter songs woven between coin-percussion & hurdy-gurdy drones. Listen for the Arbiter's bell.