[.ca] Rheingold Curse (Hybr)

amazing:
This CD is an incredible musical odyssey through the Old Norse version of parts of the Poetic Edda and the Niebelungenlied/Volsunga Saga. The music is intense and beautiful. I also was lucky enough to see this presentation live. Unfortunately the CD does not contain all the music from the live show. If you're at all interested in Medieval Studies, Norse mythology or Icelandic Sagas, you should definitely pick this up.

what an experience:
Not only have I heard this record, I also got to see Sequentia perform it at a local community college, a wrenching experience, let me tell you. It was the essence of minimalism, the players remaining seated while being trolleyed forward and back into and out of the spotlight, with the Chorus figure (dressed as a Tiresian hermaphrodite) moving laterally across the front of the stage. The immediate, apocalyptic, geopolitical ramifications left me dumbstruck; without meaning to be arch, I can honestly say that the last time I was so severely affected was the first time I saw the movie TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. There is no way simply listening to the disc could impress as deeply, but it is nevertheless an achievement in itself, and cannot be recommended more highly.

more interesting than the first "edda" recording:
While I found the musical tone of "Edda: Myths from Medieval Iceland" to be one of the most interesting things I have ever heard, simply due to its sheer difference from all modern sounds and genres of music, as well as from traditional "ethnic" music, the stories told in this CD are more interesting than the stories told in the first EDDA CD, but with the same haunting and otherworldly sound. The first CD set an atmosphere, this one brings you into it with gripping stories. By the end, you'll imagine that you speak icelandic, simply by following along with the liner translations while listening to the music.

• Voluspa I (The Prophecy of the Seeress, part 1)
• Reginsmal (The Lay of Regin)
• Fafnismal (The Lay of Fafnir)
• Sigrdrifomal (The Lay of Brynhild)
• Instrumental interlude
• Sigurdarkvida in scamma I (A Short Poem about Sigurd, part 1)
• Gudrunarkvida in Fyrsta (The First Lay of Gudrun)
• Sigurdarkvida in scamma II (A Short Poem about Sigurd, part 2)
• Gudrunarkvida onnor (The Second Lay of Gudrun)
• Atlakvida (The Lay of Atli)
• Voluspa II (The Prophecy of the Seeress, part 2)