Karda Estra - Eve


Year of Release: 2001
Label: Cyclops
Catalog Number: CYCL 104
Format: CD
Total Time: 42:35:00

Imagine waking up nearly a century and a half ago in a place that is about to witness the Godlike aspirations of Professor X, a man who in his unearthly desire to create artificial humankind is about to figuratively bring the dormant spirits of Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation to life. Having no erstwhile experience in the moral conflicts and tragic outcomes of such bold experiments, Professor X proceeds with his intention only in order to see his creation ultimately fail and die, leaving his friend Lord Ewald a husk of a man bereaved of his artificial love. A melancholic breeze gently caresses your hair as you begin to unravel the sentiments, passion plays, and erred genius that surround this romantic tragedy, with their remaining aura telling the tale while you walk through an obscurely mythical forest, still waters of hopeless death, vial-filled laboratories with gadgets designed to bring about the vanished artifice of life, and long-empty rooms with silk curtains and wrinkled sheets.

The plot condenses from the tiniest of particles, playfully at times, forebodingly at others; deceit and danger are certainly no strangers in these deceivingly peaceful surroundings. Chamber instruments echo in your head with a slight sense of forlorn hopelessness as you feel the secretly ominous promise that the Andraiad held at one time, the ideal beauty of Eve that only Lord Ewald and the professor can now conjure dance with agility as strings mingle graciously with their air counterparts, and the terrible consequences of this abhorrent game finally surface in the thoughts and silences that shadow the halls you walk through. In a distant fragment of imagination is Richard Wileman, the man responsible for the tiny particles that have let you place the puzzle together. Much like the professor, he's only an ordinary mortal, but if the professor could reach the very limits of humanly existence in his time, Mr. Wileman can certainly surround your imagination and bring a cinematic and meaningful sense of otherworldly classical instrumentation to these environs.

Closing your eyes and feeling the ethereal drops of presence transform into gentle waves of sound, you begin to realize the gentle turns that a flute delineates before being overtaken by a despondent violin. Primitively beautiful female chants glide through the sinuous paths of these instruments and allow them to continue their unendingly pensive account of the events transpired here. No words are spoken, yet this is a tale understood through pathos and wonder, not through mere words. No percussive harshness ever enters this otherworldly flow. None is needed. In a subtly gentle array of acoustic instruments that evoke timidly trembling images, you are drawn further and further into the spiral, forever engrossed in this reliving of the past, and if there ever was a way back, it has long since been forgotten...


Tracklisting:
An Ordinary Mortal (4:33) / Andraiad (8:27) / The Pale Ray (3:28) / Super Electrical (4:40) / Eve (7:37) / Sparks That Flash And Fall (10:23) / Thoughts and Silences (3:23)

Musicians:
Richard Wileman - classical, electric and bass guitars, keyboards, percussion
Ileesha Bailey - Vocals
Helen Dearnley - Violin
Caron Hansford - Oboe, cor anglais
Zoe King - flute, alto saxophone, clarinet
Rachel Larkins - viola, violin

Discography:
A Winter In Summertime (1998)
Thirteen From The Twenty First (2000)
The Land Of Ghosts (2000)
Eve (2001)
Equilibrium (2002)
The Land Of Ghosts Vol. 2 (2002) (oop)
Constellations (2003)
Voivode Dracula (2004)
Alternate History (2004)
The Age Of Science And Enlightenment (2006)
The Last Of The Libertine (2007)
Weird Tales (2009)
New Worlds (2011) (free album download)

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin UK

Added: July 1st 2002
Reviewer: Marcelo Silveyra
Score:
Artist website: www.kardaestra.co.uk
Hits: 2095
Language: english

  

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