The fiddle playing that tune had a mute on its bridge, substantially reducing the volume of the music, but it was still loud enough for the woman to lift her head and smile when she heard it. She knew that tune, if not the fiddler, and yet she had a sense of the fiddler as well. There was something — an echo of familiarity — that let her guess who it was, because she knew from whom he’d learned to play. — Charles de Lint’s Drink Down the Moon
Well, this is Gary, the music editor … I wandered into the Editor’s office and found it empty and quiet, so somehow the job of putting a bow on this edition fell to me! It’s one of the busiest times of year here at the Estate. The harvest — or rather multiple harvests — are wrapping up in the fields, forests and orchards, while others in the pantries and the winery and the brewery and of course the Kitchen itself are busy processing all that fine produce for the Winter whose breath has begun to tickle the fine hair on our necks. And to be quite honest, some are still recovering from Samhain. So this time I’ve a potpourri of book and music reviews from the Archives, as well as a few new music reviews for your perusal.
From the archives, April reviewed Jodie Forrest’s The Rhymer and the Ravens: The Book of Fate, the first of a four book series. ‘Although Forrest’s prose drags a bit in places, on the whole, The Rhymer and the Ravens is an enjoyable, easy read. There is good attention paid to historical accuracy and to the blending of divergent mythologies (Celtic and Norse, in particular).’
I reviewed some noted books about the collectors of American folk songs that are back in print: John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax’s American Ballads and Folk Songs, and Our Singing Country: Folk Songs and Ballads; and John W. Work’s American Negro Songs. To have them back in print, I noted, ‘… is an occasion for celebration. One has but to thumb through any one of these tree volumes to find the roots, trunks and branches of all manner of American music that’s still being made today.’
Grey wrote an omnibus review on a big stack of books about folk tales and fables from cultures as different as Mexico, Mongolia, and Vietnam. ‘The six collections described in this review were assembled by markedly different authors and published at unrelated times, by unrelated publishers. Yet the similarities between some of the stories in them are striking.’
Jayme could put down The Wicked Day, book four of Mary Stewart’s Arthurian saga, which deals with Mordred’s rise and fall. ‘Mordred, to my great shock, was not portrayed as the black-hearted villain legend remembers him as. Indeed, as he grows, he becomes Arthur’s most trusted knight, and staunchest supporter. Stewart approaches the story demanding logic and consistency in her characters’ actions and motivations.’
Rebecca had slightly mixed feelings about Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak’s Brundibar. ‘Reading the book, and especially looking at Sendak’s wonderful drawings, it’s easy to see that this was originally an opera. The story is much concerned with singing, and all of the characters seem to dance on the page. Each vendor in the square has his or her song, and there’s Brundibar’s, and the children get two.’
In new music reviews, I was intrigued by a “jazz guitar” album that defies easy categorization. ‘New Age, trance, World, ambient, tone poems … Steve Tibbetts’ Close slips and slides around and through any attempt at categorization or description or genre.’
Next I listened to a bigger ensemble on the Chris Byars Sextet’s The Dark Forest. ‘Chris Byars’ sextet combines the best of two jazz worlds, the sophisticated sonic palette of the big band and the nimble nature of the smaller bop combo that leaves more room for soloists to shine. Leader and composer Byars, who here plays tenor sax, clarinet and flute, is perhaps strongest as an arranger, giving each of these tunes its own character and drawing on the many colorations possible from a mid-sized ensemble.’
Then there is an album of through composed music for a jazz quintet plus a string quartet plus a DJ and electronic music artist, built around a formula that involves the circle of fifths and constellations in our night sky. ‘The origin story, many of the technical details and some of the music on this album flummox me. But that doesn’t stop me from recognizing Patricia Brennan’s Of The Near And Far as an astonishing work of art, and indeed some of this music is among my favorite of 2025.’
In archival reviews, I noted that The Decemberists drew heavily on their love for and knowledge of progressive English folk rock in their 2016 album The Hazards of Love, which I reviewed that year. ‘This album tells, in its own winding way, the story of Margaret and her doomed love affair with a shape-shifting lover, William, whose mother is the forest queen. There’s also a subplot involving a character known only as The Rake, who does away with his children after their mother dies in childbirth.’
The songs and the musicians are all superb on one of my favorites, I note in my archival review of Bert Jansch’s Moonshine. ‘Another key factor that elevates this record to classic status is Jansch himself. He has a vocal style that is distinctive, heavily accented and very nasal. And of course his percussive guitar playing is even more distinctive and was highly influential on artists from Nick Drake to Jimmy Page to Neil Young.’
I was intrigued by Makam’s Almanach, an album of Hungarian music that also shows influences from U.K. and U.S. folk and rock. ‘This music is as different as can be from the more traditional Hungarian folk music that other groups have popularized in Western Europe and the U.S., but it springs from the same earthy roots.’
Kim reviewed the scene, the food, and especially the music at Toronto’s famous Nora Keogh Irish Pub. ‘Dora’s is usually packed on session nights, and the Sunday session (from 6:30 p.m. – my observation) often includes younger players — sometimes as young as early teens out with their parents. The Thursday session begins around 9:30 p.m., and goes to whenever the musicians get tired.’
Mike Stiles was ensorcelled by Herne’s Apprentice, an album from the Welsh musician who performs as Damh the Bard. ‘I could write pages about this album but I’ll keep things in as much focus as I can. Damh draws deeply from Cymric myth and legend as found in primary sources like the Mabinogion. This is not just a tribute to that material, it rebirths it and creates a wonderful gateway for those who should explore it.’
‘These two CDs benchmark the glorious growth of the guitar in Celtic music,’ he said of Steve Reel’s Celtic Knights and The Unfortunate Rakes’ Rakes Alive! Of the former, he notes, ‘Steve’s guitar playing draws from many sources, but to give you a rough idea, its foundation rests on the flat-picking styles pioneered in the Bluegrass tradition by Doc Watson and cohorts. You will also hear more than a passing strain of Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.’
Mike Wilson liked Darren Black’s Thinkers & Fools from some English folk heavyweights. ‘Everything about Thinkers & Fools is likeable. Black’s lyrics are thought provoking and reflective; the instrumental arrangements are accomplished but never intrusive.’
Naomi reviewed a nifty record of Cape Breton Island fiddling, The Lighthouse by fiddler and lighthouse keeper Paul Cranford & Friends. ‘Should you like good Cape Breton fiddling and original compositions, then this is the disc for you. Paul Cranford is a talented fiddler with sensitive fingers and impassioned playing.’
Fortunately, for our Coda, Iain left the following note:
I’ve been reading Charles de Lint‘s ‘The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep’ story, which is collected in Dreams Underfoot which has the following lovely passage about old hag tunes: ‘She looks like the wizened old crone in that painting Jilly did for Geordie when he got into this kick of learning fiddle tunes with the word ‘hag’ in the title: ‘the Hag in the Kiln,’ ‘Old Hag You Have Killed Me,’ ‘The Hag With the Money,’ and god knows how many more. Just like in the painting, she’s wizened and small and bent over and … dry. Like kindling, like the pages of an old book. Like she’s almost all used up. Hair thin, body thinner. but then you look into her eyes and they’re so alive it makes you feel a little dizzy.’
Okay, let’s see if there’s any Old Hag tunes on the Infinite Jukebox, our digital media server. I’ve got one by the Bothy Band whose Old Hag You Have Killed Me is one of best Irish trad albums ever done, and we’ve audio of them performing ‘Old Hag You Have Killed Me’ which we’ll share with you as it’s very splendid.
No idea when it was done, though about fifty years ago is the most common guess among those who speculate about such things, or where it was recorded for that matter. But here it is for your listening pleasure.
I figured one time that there are some fifteen miles (yes miles, I never took to the metric system, nor has anyone else here) of trails and walking paths that need continuous work. Some are essentially raised pathways, like the wooden ones that cross sensitive biomes like the marsh area that lies between the Estate Building and the yurts beyond that marsh area for our seasonal staff. 
What’s New for the 4th of January: Favorite books and music of 2025
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven
Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!”
We’ve given over this edition to Gary, our music editor extraordinaire, who’s telling us about the books he reviewed last year and some music from 2025 that he really liked as well. So here he is…
I didn’t review a lot of books in 2025, but those that I did review were exceptional. (I must confess I spent much of the year immersed in Henning Mankell’s series of police procedurals featuring the Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. Mankell wrote and set them in the 1990s and early 2000s, and in them he identifies a number of global societal trends that are still affecting us today. Highly recommended if you haven’t yet read them, or watched the BBC’s versions.)
First up chronologically was Simon Jimenez’s debut SF novel The Vanished Birds, which was a finalist for the Locus Award for 2020 and named one of the best books of the year by tordotcom and Kirkus Reviews, it was also selected by Jo Walton as one of the top 10 genre books of the first quarter of the 21st century (a list you should definitely check out). ‘In The Vanished Birds, Simon Jimenez has created memorable characters, crafted an intricate and epic plot spanning centuries and lightyears, and especially has done some extraordinary world building. It’s the kind of world — or really universe — building in which the details are slowly revealed in the reading without a lot of tedious explication. He does that by first introducing us — in a bit of literary legerdemain — to a small character on a marginal world and then gradually enlarging the field of view, giving us more characters in more complex situations in various settings across vast time and space. By the time you realize the scope of the tale, you’re definitely hooked.’
Next up was Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, which filled in the origin story behind her highly popular Lady Astronaut series. The series imagines what would have happened if the U.S. had started the space program right after WWII, before an asteroid hits the Atlantic Ocean in the late 1950s and irreparably damages Earth. ‘When we meet her, Elma York (née Wexler) and her husband Nathaniel are horny young married professionals on vacation in a secluded cabin in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Both work for the space agency NACA, she as a computer, he (a Manhattan Project veteran) as chief engineer. … Kowal handles the story masterfully, with just enough scientific jargon and facts to keep it feeling authentic but not enough to bog it down; her dialogue is solid and contributes to the believable characters; and especially she conveys the inner reality of a woman of the pre-feminist 1950s and ’60s who believes in her own capabilities and chafes against society’s restrictions, but often doesn’t even recognize many of the assumptions she unwittingly accepts. She even handles a few mild sex scenes with grace and aplomb.’
I read Elizabeth Bear’s The Folded Sky, the third entry in her White Space series, as soon as it was published. As Elizabeth herself pointed out, this one is a family drama, first contact novel and space opera, with a mystery thrown in for good measure. The heroine Dr. Sunya Song ‘… has been assigned to travel to a red dwarf called the Baostar that is about to go supernova. It is surrounded by Koregoi tech in the form of a sentient archive that the Synarche is just learning how to communicate with, and that’s where Sunya comes in. She’s tasked with communicating with the Baostar, all the while a small fleet of ships is ferrying away as many parts of it as can be saved before the star explodes. … The attempted murders, the unstable star, the nasty pirates are all something like McGuffins that move the plot along as we root for Sunya to survive long enough to gain confidence in herself.’
To wrap this up, my final review was James S. A. Corey’s The Mercy of Gods, the first of a new series by this duo who brought us The Expanse. It’s an edge-of-seat SF thriller in which a nearly omniscient alien power subjugates a human civilization, enslaving its top scientists, engineers and leaders on the aliens’ home planet, where they compete to the death with other slaves to solve problems for their new masters. ‘As with the crew of Rocinante in The Expanse, “Corey” (a.k.a. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) has created a team of distinct individuals for the reader to identify with, each having their own strengths, weaknesses and quirks. And then put them into an unimaginably stressful situation that brings out their best and sometimes worst traits. The plot draws on elements of Holocaust narratives, prison narratives and of course the campus novel, all in the midst of a fantastically constructed space opera. It’s also influenced by a classical, or rather Biblical source that I’m embarrassed I didn’t spot: The Book of Daniel, in which the Israelites are dragged off to Babylon for a generations-long captivity. The universe of The Mercy of Gods is a one that I won’t forget, and I can’t wait for the next installment in this trilogy.’
It was also the year that I discovered a pretty good SF related podcast, The Coode Street Podcast with Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe. The two hosts engage in interviews with noted SFF writers and also have discussions (sometimes rather too in the weeds for me) of awards, cons and other genre arcana. I’ve really just dipped my toe in so far, but I very much enjoyed discussions with Jo Walton and with Guy Gavriel Kay.
I’ll start with Julian Shore Trio’s Sub Rosa, GinmanBlachmanDahl’s Play Ballads, Convergence’s Reckless Meter, and Kalia Vandever’s Another View. A couple of piano trios, a modern jazz sextet from Colorado, and a trombone-led quartet with one of today’s top guitarists in a strong supporting role.
Sub Rosa: ‘The trio shows its chops and Shore his talent for arrangement on some well chosen covers including Duke Ellington’s “Blues In Blueprint,” a lesson in abstraction based on a simple form; a romantic trip through the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)” and a highly abstracted romp through the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein standard “All The Things You Are.” ‘
Play Ballads: The album is rife with Ellingtonia: in addition to “Satin Doll” you’ll find the Duke’s “C Jam Blues” and “Come Sunday,” his son Mercer Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” and “Chelsea Bridge.”‘
Reckless Meter: ‘The music is modern but melodic, with a lot of swing coming out of that rhythm section and delicious harmonies from the horns. If there’s anything that sounds better to my ears than a trumpet and sax mixing unison and harmony lines, it’s when you add a trombone to the mix!’
Another View: ‘In places Vandever draws on trance-like repitition to create an aura of mania or paranoia, particularly the introductions to “Withholding” and “Unearth What You Already Knew,” and elsewhere employing a menacing style of classical-influenced composition to unsettle, especially the arco bass-trombone duet that opens “Cycle In Mourning.”
Next up are Ovella Negra’s Va de Mescles!, and Rosàlia De Souza Quarteto 55˚’s self-titled debut album of Brazilian samba, choro and more. ‘Ovella Negra is at root a piano trio, but one with a difference. Pianist Joan Frontera Luna’s vision was to create a vibrant jazz program from the popular folk music of his native Balearic Islands (off Spain’s southern Mediterranean coast, including Mallorca) and unite the music with a visual program that showcases the island’s traditional dances as well.’ … ‘De Souza, a world renowned interpreter of samba, bossa nova, and Brazilian music traditions with more than a dozen albums to her name joins with Danish pianist Peter Rosendal, Canadian bassist Graig Earle, and Danish drummer Jonas Johansen on a program of mostly originals by quartet members in various combinations, with some Brazilian classics sprinkled in.’
In music podcasts, I continued enjoying some of my old standbys: Discord & Rhyme, Slate’s Hit Parade with Chris Molanphy, and Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. And I discovered a couple of new ones that I’ve been binging. Most recently The Late Set, in which Nate Chinen and Josh Jackson conduct in-depth conversations with jazz musicians and share the occasional number from one of those artists’ live set. But my favorite of the year is A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, by Andrew Hickey. These are short (approximately 30 minutes) but deep episodes, begun in September 2018, covering Hickey’s sometimes quirky but definitely authoritative opinions about the way rock music has evolved. I found out about it when someone from the old Richard Thompson List posted a link to the episode about Fairport Convention’s ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes?’, which is 178 on his chronological list.
The lyrics save for the title, which is repeated throughout the song, and the final two lines are the first eight verses of the third chapter of the ‘Book of Ecclesiastes’. The Byrds also recorded it and you can hear them sing it here. This version was recorded at the Boston Tea Party fifty-six years ago.