Dryad by Fabio Keiner

I'm excited to welcome Fabio Keiner to earthMANTRA, with his label premiere release "Dryad".

For more than a decade, Keiner has been turning out genre-bending music in a wide variety of disciplines. His work, ever focused more on true tonality than musicality, has featured prominently on such cornerstone labels as Treetrunk Records, Petroglyph and Aural Films. With his new release, "Dryad", he has created a haunting 72-minute journey into the deepest reaches of myth and magic - and the intimate language of trees.

Fabio had this to say about the release:

"In ancient times also in Europe, nature was thought to be populated by a myriad of spirits, forces, little gods and goddesses. In antique Greek mythology, each tree was inhabited by a dryad - a female tree spirit, which lived inside the tree, growing and dying with it. A Spirit which could be evoked or dreamed by sleeping in its tree's shadow and would become visible at certain sacred times - Solstice, Equinox or during a full moon - to dance with the mighty Pan, God of Wilderness, Sexuality and Music.

Martin A. Smith's 'Nature Synth' (www.musicvsts.com, where the full paid version is available) tries to make audible in scientific ways those vibes of living trees - frequencies of electro pulses from the tree itself, Caught by microphones and transformed into ambient sounds... making an oak-tree sing in its tunes. 'Dryad' is an experiment trying to interpret those sounds via a longform ambient soundscape - listening to the Tree Spirit's song. To add also the tunes and musings of Water-Nymphs - so often described by antique poets like Ovid, the second track tries to interpret the sounds of wind and weather, rain and leaf-whistling. Finally 'Lamia' - the calling of evil night-spirits which roamed at midnight in the guise of owls, preferably at a crossroads.

Take it as you like - as a fairytale or as kind of weird tree-listening:
Enjoy!"

I'm thrilled to welcome Fabio to the earthMANTRA family, and delighted to bring you this most excellent release. Please enjoy.

- Geoff Stewart (eM)

earthMANTRA (eM) is a privately owned and operated ambient music label that exists for the sole purpose bringing high-quality ambient music to fans of the genre in a "Pay What You Want" environment.