Blood Axis

Blood Axis

Blood Axis performing in 2016
Background information
Origin United States
Genres Experimental
Folk
Martial
Neofolk
Neoclassical
Post-industrial
Spoken word
Years active 1989–present
Labels Storm
Members Michael Moynihan
Robert Ferbrache
Annabel Lee

Blood Axis is an American Neofolk/Post-industrial band consisting of journalist and author Michael Moynihan, music producer Robert Ferbrache and musician and author Annabel Lee.[1]

Overview

Early Blood Axis (1989-1999)

Moynihan had founded Coup de Grace, a multimedia project that produced live performances and cassettes and also released booklets of images and texts, the last of which was Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist.[2] The first output from the new appellation were two songs, "Lord of Ages" (employing lyrics from Rudyard Kipling's poem on Mithras[3]) and "Electricity", which appeared on a German music sampler. These tracks were well received in Europe and were followed by two more songs that appeared on the compilation, Im Blutfeuer.[4]

In 1995, Moynihan released the first full-length studio LP, The Gospel of Inhumanity with the help of Robert Ferbrache.[5] The album wedded the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Sergei Prokofiev with modern electronics. Moynihan implemented a recording of Ezra Pound reading from his The Cantos.[6] He also included lyrics from Nietzsche and Longfellow [7] as well as his own to the work.

The band consisted of Michael Moynihan (vocals, bodhrán), Annabelle Lee (melodeon, electric violin) and Robert Ferbrache (guitars, keyboards).[8]

Lee

Lee and Moynihan comprise the musical group, "Blood Axis."[9]

Lee translates books and articles, which include those by Christian Rätsch and Julius Evola.[10]

Contemporary Blood Axis (2000-present)

In 2005, Blood Axis play the German Flammenzauber festival, showcasing reworked live versions of several previously released songs, an amount of Irish folk songs and the live debut of a few new songs.[11] April 2006 saw further live activity from Blood Axis, as well as a new medium for the duo's folk-oriented material entitled Knotwork at the Swiss Triumvirat festival.[12]

Beginning in 1998, Moynihan began saying that Blood Axis was at work on a second full-length album, at one time said to be entitled Ultimacy.[13] On 2 January 2009, Blood Axis played in Sintra, Portugal, with members of Portuguese band Sangre Cavallum. Moynihan stated on stage that the new album, now titled Born Again, was to be released the following Easter.[14]

Discography

Albums

Collaborations and split releases

Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain

Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain
Live album by Blood Axis / In Gowan Ring

Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain is a recording of a 1999 live collaboration of Blood Axis and In Gowan Ring, performing as Witch-Hunt. The album was not released on a label. Limited to 100 CDR copies for private distribution, it was sold only at select Blood Axis concerts in Portugal. The album came in a special hand-made fold-out sleeve with leaf.

Track listing:

Witch Hunt recorded live on Samhain, Oct. 31, 1999
  1. Welcoming By Harold McNeill
  2. I Lay Stretched On Your Grave / Morning Dew
  3. Two Magicians
  4. Sea Ritual
  5. Dead Men's Slip-Jig
  6. The Rolling of the Stones
  7. The Black One
Bonus tracks:
  1. The Rolling of the Stones - In Gowan Ring, from the compilation The Pact of the Gods
  2. The March of Brian Boru - Blood Axis, from the compilation 10 Years of Madness
  3. Follow Me Up To Carlow - Blood Axis, previously unreleased

References

  1. ↑ Liner notes of the Ultimacy compilation
  2. ↑ An interview Archived October 30, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. by Jan R. Bruun
  3. ↑ Kipling, Rudyard. "A Song To Mithras" Archived February 13, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Interview from the EsoTerra #5, 1995
  5. ↑ the album notes read "The Gospel of inhumanity was [...] entirely performed, recorded and engineered [...] by Michael Jenkins Moynihan and Robert Ferbrache".
  6. ↑ Pound, Ezra. "The Cantos"
  7. ↑ Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth—The Challenge of Thor"; Pitt; .
  8. ↑ from the notes of the album Blòt: Sacrifice in Sweden
  9. ↑ Blood Axis Bio Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.; Tesco Records on line; retrieved .
  10. ↑
    • Christian Rätsch, Claudia Müller-Ebeling. "Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas" (transl. Annabel Lee) (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2002).
  11. ↑ from the interview for the Heaven Street magazine, Issue 3, spring 2006, available on-line on Heaven Street website.
  12. ↑ the flyer of the festival is available on soleilnoir.ch event page
  13. ↑ from “Goodmorning Europa!”, an interview with Michael Moynihan made by Occidental Congress during winter 1998/1999
  14. ↑ from the Blood Axis archives
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