A Barsoomian Lullaby Volume One | A Snow White Egg

by 400 Lonely Things

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1.
Princess of Helium 12:59
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2.
The 9th Ray 12:51
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3.
Adrift Over Strange Regions 12:23
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4.
Cluros and Thuria 12:56
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5.
Pimalia 13:49
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about

Our third album.
A bit of a departure from most of our other albums. This one is a solo endeavour by Craig, is made entirely out of samples, and rather than being gathered and mixed and assembled over the course of years, was recorded in the order that they appear on the album, one song a week, for five weeks in the Summer of 2007. It was mastered by Mark Dann in 2008.

Volume One in a multi-part series, "A Barsoomian Lullaby" is intended as an unofficial audio companian to the fantastic world of Barsoom created by author Edgar Rice Burroughs in the early 1900’s.

Rather than providing a soundtrack to events specific to any of the books, "A Barsoomian Lullaby" is conceived as more of a personal environmental study; an auditory portrait of this equally bizarre and beautiful imaginary Martian landscape Burroughs depicts "of indescribable loveliness, tinged with the weirdness of strange enchantment". The recordings are perhaps best-suited to low-volume, indirect listening - ideally while falling asleep reading one of the eleven "Martian" novels; A Barsoomian Lullaby to invoke the dreamless sleep of Mars.

A note from Craig on this series:
The "Barsoomian Lullaby" series is a personal favorite of mine. The books and illustrations and paintings of Barsoom have been with me since childhood. This series of recordings came about to enhance one of my frequent re-readings of the entire set of eleven novels.

First exposure to these books was a bit of a life-preserver for me at a difficult age; a time in which - as a child becoming a teen - I desperately needed the world of Barsoom to be real as I felt my home had to be somewhere other than earth. I can remember lying in bed at night in lonely Mississippi summers, and seeing Mars outside of my window, a red dot among the other stars. I can remember wondering if tonight would be the night that I went to sleep and finally awoke to find myself transported to the moss-covered surface of Barsoom as the character of John Carter found himself magically transported there in the first novel. Mars called to him from the night sky, and he stretched out his arms and was taken there by his own desire. Now twenty-something years later, I look more to Barsoom as being my personal idea of Heaven. Perhaps after I die, I will find I have a thousand years awaiting me there. Probably not. Oh well, there's always Pellucidar.

Emotional and nostalgic reasons aside, the Barsoomian Lullaby series is also a favorite as I am in love with this type of dreamy, slightly creepy yet strangely peaceful and mildly rhythmic ambience. It's a pleasure to make and to listen to; I find that I relax as it unfolds, and am taken almost immediately to the fringe of sleep.

I hope that anyone who listens to any of the albums in this series and hasn't been exposed to these incredible books gives them a chance. It's been important to me to make this and meaningful for me to listen to.

credits

released June 7, 2008

Craig Varian

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