Rehearsal take from December 2010, live in the Barley Temple; very different from the version we recorded for Oak Ash Thorn as owing the ongoing problems with the harmonium we ditched it in favour of the guitar which changed the groove rather.

Rapunzel : electro acoustic guitar and singing
Sedayne : kaossilator, citera and singing

WHAT is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre.
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables
To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,
Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker? 

The image is of one of the old Fleetwood-Larne ferries sailing out of the River Wyre in the summer of 2009 not far from Hakensall Hall, once the Viking settlement of Hakon whose women would have lamented similarly, though it must have been as a fine a sight as this.


Harp Song of the Dane Women (Redux)

Excerpt from S8 Sean McCann "The River Witch" C60

Sean McCann "The River Witch" excerpt

I'll Know You

“Free the organ from its dependence on the church and remove it from its sacred immobility.”
“…a phenomenological approach that involves experiencing the limits of sound objects.”  - Pancrace Manifesto

“The talented Pancrace ensemble reminds me of David Munrow and the Early Music Consort.” - Charles Curtis

Music for spatialized midi controlled pipe organ “Organous”, Silbermann pipe organ (1778), Voices, Bird Calls, Baroque Violin, Rattles, Ventilators, Whistles, Uilleann Pipes, Gaïda, Sheng, Rhombus, Pouet-Pouet, Pi Synth, Kastle Synth and AM radio. 
Pancrace is an ensemble comprising French, British and Austrian performers. 

The members being Prune Bécheau, Arden Day, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel and Jan Vysocky. 

Pancrace has “a unique, fully formed vision that combines improvisation, composition, eclectic instrumentation and a church’s massive pipe organ” (Sarah Hennies).

Pancrace’s latest double LP “Papotier” is the third panel of a tryptic after “Pancrace” (2017) and “Fluid Hammer” (2019). The ensemble knew at some point from their previous LP they would have to go back to church and repent confronting a Silbermann 18th century baroque organ with their custom made modular midi pipe organ : the “Organous”. 

After nearly 18 months of lockdown the quintet finally met in Bouxwiller Alsace a few miles away from Dangolsheim where Pancrace first formed in 2015. During a residency Pancrace had full access to the Protestant church with its humongous Silbermann pipe organ famous for its “human voice” stop. Ironically the album title “Papotier” came up before the covid era. Ironic because a “papotier” is a mask or to be very specific a grotesque face carved in wood, initially rigged to the lower part of the organ casing. There are only very few of these fancy oddities left in France and around the world. 

After months of feeling gagged during lockdown having a “papotier” as an amulet was somewhat liberating and greatly contributed to opening up the Pancrace sessions to the exploration of human voice. Relearning how to breathe, listening to the human membrane, questioning the nature of air all within the confined space of a 14th century church were the essential acts that compose the pieces. One can consider this album as a phenomenological investigation into voice articulation trying to emulate the birth of a vocable like von Kempelen's speaking machine who also used rudimentary organ modules to mimic human babbling. Essentially understanding what a mouth is to us to the point where, when all the pipes are blowing, they make a hell of a noise.

Melville

An attempt to write a song in the style of that annoying eighties shite.

Signs of our Times -rough demo

[2011.09.04]
The A. Lords - Mistress Chetell
Jon DeRosa - Ladies in Love
The Driftwood Manor - The Turning Darkness
Susan Matthews & Richard Moult - Aria
Zvuku - Woodpile
Popol Vuh - Dort Ist der Weg
Rain Drinkers - In the Central Loom I
Burial Hex - The Book of Delusions
Gimu - The Purification
Peter Wright - Coruscation / Heat Haze
Ruhr Hunter - The Leaving Trees

Cloudscape #18 (September 2011)

[2011.09.30]
Coil - Are You Shivering?
Ulver - EOS
Troum - Usque Sumus Lux
Raison d'Être - The Narrow Gate
Tuxedomoon - In a Manner of Speaking
Shoc Corridor - Iceberg
Lycia - Excade Decade Decada
Sol Invictus - No One
Incipit Musica Catholica - Cunctipotens
Current 93 - The Mystical Body of Christ in Chorazaim (The Great in the Small)
Maarten van der Vleuten - Genade Oord / Regina Coeli
Vidna Obmana - Out from the Garden Reminded (Final Remix)
Gregorio Allegri - Miserere

A Tribute to Kink FM X-Rated (September 2011)

[2026.07.29]
Daisuke Matsusaka - Outside the Beginning
Roxane Métayer - Temple bouddhiste Amidain, Ogimachi, île de Sado.
Daisuke Matsusaka - Solitary Beauty feat. Kaoru Inoue
Roxane Métayer - Les démons s'absentent.
Roxane Métayer - Bulbul à oreillons bruns et autres oiseaux de l'île de Sado.
ECOLOGY141 - ASSET 4
Yuki Aizawa - Mirage of Memory
Osawa Tome - Cobalt Purpose
FM Forest - Pansy Mountain
Takashi Kokubo - A Dream Sails Out to Sea - Scene 3
sora - pause
H. Takahashi - Pipeline (Kohei Oyamada Remix)
Andrew Weathers & Hayden Pedigo - Fossil Water
Glover/Perreault - rails
Old Saw - Long Distance Engraving
Yui Onodera & Takashi Kokubo - Thousand Bells 4
Mydreamfever - 모래성 (Sandcastle)
微風ゾーン Bifuu_ZONE - RIC Midnight
Naoto Taguchi - Untitled Fragments #001 (Reprised Remix)
Rhucle - Debris
sadness - glistening in the march lowsun

summerbright haze environing

[2026.07.24]
Tof Tof Tof - Turtle
Kobrik - Def Jam
Commander Tom - Eye C Red (De Luxe Mix)
Asia 2001 - Reykjavik
Accelerator - Accelerator 2
Manix - Feel Real Good
Sushi - Osaka Acid
Mandala - The Encore (Acid Remix)
Coda - We Can Control Technology
DJ SS - Pulsation
ABEM - Corrosive Rave
Rosalía - Malamente (ABEM Psy Edit)
Coco Bryce - I Run This Ballgame
Quartz - Coercion
GHÖSH - LYAOF
(Seba & Lotek - Sonic Winds) (fell off the recording due to internet issues)
Sempra - Reminiscence
MANAPOOL - Like I Was Your Friend
Intense - Flashback
DJ Healer - come closer.
Artemis - Sun Stars
Lyle Mays - Street Dreams 4

Gene Hex @ coming soon | 24-07-26

[2020.01.15]
Thou - Come Home, You Are Missed
Common Eider, King Eider - A Mouth of Ash
Moljebka Pvlse - An Emptiness of Language
Chrome Waves - Spirits Descend
Witxes - Incarnations
Elend - Melpomene
COIL - Madriiax
United Bible Studies - Grave Trudge
Embertides - Between Trees & Starlike
Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows - …And Bringer of Sadness
Eitarnora - You Are Mine
Ghostwriter - Routine Surgery

Μηλινόη's Stygian Dementia #06

Welcome to Rapunzel and Sedayne's Soundcloud page where you can hear things that aren't available anywhere else. Even the things that are feature here in different takes and arrangements reflecting our love of chance and change as an integral part of The Folk Process. Thus we constantly evolve new material or else take new approaches to old stuff for the sheer pleasure of keeping things fresh. And it's all live too - no overdubs on point of policy and principle (although there is a couple here - see if you can spot them - and there's a special prize for the first who does...).

Rapunzel and Sedayne (otherwise known as Venereum Arvum) are a husband and wife folk 'n' fun duo who focus on the harmonious beauties of the English-speaking Tradition of folk song and ballad.They have contributed to a number of critically acclaimed CDs, including Angel High Wires (with Julie Tippetts, nee Driscoll), and have contributed tracks to Infernal Proteus and the various volumes of John Barleycorn Reborn. They are featured on OAK ASH THORN and are part of The Woodbine and Ivy Band currently in the offing. Their 2009 album A Pentacle of Pips is available from both Folk Police (download edition with full graphics) and Reverb Worship (CD-R edition with limited graphics) and their album, Songs from the Barley Temple was released to critical acclaim on Folk Police in September 2011.

'...pure and unaffected vocal revivify an erudite selection of traditional British songs...' - Stewart Lee, Sunday Times

'...one of the best, most intriguing, simultaneously fascinating and entertaining debuts out of the UK folk scene in a long time.' - Ian A Anderson, fRoots.

From OAK ASH THORN reviews...
 
"..wierd and slightly scarey.." - Colin Irwin, fRoots
"..otherwordly..bodes well.." - R2 (Rock and Reel)
"...enchant with a spellbinding performance..." - Amazon



Harp Song of the Dane Women (Redux)

Rapunzel and Sedayne

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