Tempest Eclipse by Mark O'Leary Ensemble

In my formative years, Edward Vesala was one of the most influential voices that had a profound effect on my aesthetic.
I had worked with in a band with Tomasz Szukalski and Drummer Michal Miskiewicz in Poland, Tomasz had worked in the mid seventies with Vesala in a band with Tomasz Stanko, at the time Michal was Stanko's drummer.
I asked Finnish musicians; Pepa Päivinen and Jorma Tapio, both of whom had worked extensively with Vesala, about working together, they agreed, we decided to make a band and thus, we invited Mark Nauseef to play on drums and percussion. Mr. Nauseef had also worked with Vesala as well as being a member of the Velvet Underground and a multiplicity of other influential entities.
We managed to organise a tour and schedule a recording at Studio Fiona, which was overbooked and just about managed to facilitate the recording.
On the day the album was being mixed, we were immersed in an eclipse, and also the recollection of the fantastic vibrancy around the recording, one could peruse upon the Tempest, of Shakespearian lore., Ye, elves of hills...
To immerse and find ones place within this sui generis music, which is understated, with a modicum of intermittent intensity, one must invoke and adhere to the mantle of decorum. The presence of spirit of Vesala was immanent, in a very distilled and subtle medium and it was implacable.
Germane to the genre, with salience to each musician in the evolving dialectic and discourse, sans maunder, sans insouciance.
The vocalisations, reminiscent of shamanic sami incantations, hunter gatherers, primitivist, displayed with ardent ardour.
The concomitant; overtones on clarinets, reeds, percussive effects and ambient guitar interjections, all amalgamate into a contemplative dulcet.
The musicians quern queueing inspiration from the atmospheric augurer; undulating, meandering, in perspicacious prerogative
Mark O’Leary, January 2025.
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Tempest Eclipse Stanza Mark O'Leary

Ebbing Neptune, demi puppets, ye elves of hills,
Jove's stout oak, querulous quern upon the mills,
the printless foot meandering sands,
Noaidi incantation, summoning sacred lands,

Bindal doth sounded by vuorbi he grips,
Noontide sun, morph to Tempest Eclipse,
The king's ship, gentle breath of sails, ahoy,
Immortal providence, Odysseus exeunt Troy,

By privy stratagem, Piraeus come thither,
Telemachus and Pallas, entice Eumaeus hither,
Sentinel continuo, Nymphéas , Ulysses wall,
Eteoneus arise from Somnus, phalanx doth call,

Oracles of Naiads, Queen of the sky,
Cold nymph chaste crowns, dawn is nigh,
From Ithaca, Euryclea, handmaids to regale,
Wings of stygian black, Etruscans prevail,

Tyrrhus garlands soft, of Lycia golden fields,
Bacchus massic soil, Hermus corn doth yields,
Cloud capped ramparts, solemn towers,
'Twixt the green and azure, Orpheus flowers.

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