As an ex-goth turned folkie with a house full of history books and a penchant for visiting the Middle East when ever money and political climate allow, it is almost as if Fear of The Forest are the result of a series of options I have selected on some futuristic, customise music producing machine.
The album is a clash of occident and orient, of exotic arabesque and pastoral folk threads, of medieval and modern, the classic and the classical, of dark intensities and frivolous jauntiness. It is baroque’n’roll, it is renaissance-core, it is world trotting classical punk…oh, the fun we can have with making up new music labels.
In the hands of lesser musicians and arrangers this might be a bit too much to work with, an audio overload for the listener but the fact that at any time you can clearly identify four or more different musical strands, from any number of genres and cultures running through the song, is a testament to just how deft these people are at weaving exotic musical patterns.
Occidental tourists indeed!