Herongale 

You are very welcome. Thankyou for listening!

Thankyou. Much appreciated. Sounds are crucial to this kind of music as well as quality effects and a powerful computer! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Jim

Hi Gary. Glad you enjoyed Herongale. I thought of a new description. Assisted listening! Hah.

@@braincabin Thankyou!

Спасибо, мой друг. Я очень ценю, что вы нашли время, чтобы выслушать. Джим

Thankyou my friend. Go care-lessly Jim

And the same to you Rod. Go care-lessly Jim

Thankyou. Much appreciated Jim

I hope you much success with your art. Thankyou for listening.

You are most welcome! Jim

Thankyou. It is not often I get comments on the art. So your comment was encouraging. Thanks again elfmix. Jim

@@Jimkirkwood24 You're most welcome.

Deus o abençoe, meu amigo, por escrever palavras tão encorajadoras. eu sou verdadeiramente grato Jim

Yes, Heron like the bird and gale like the wind. I pass through a place called Herongale two or three times a week. It is a very small old English village. I needed a place name for part of the story so I guess I was influenced by what I knew. In the story, which I hope to write one day, Herongale is one of seven sanctuaries that was founded in Arthurian times and will reappear again as the land that is about to experience the Apocalypse, or at least, their version of it. Foxhalt Edge is another of these sanctuaries. The story is set in modern times and comes at the opposite end of the Hermit of Bryn Or Garreg storyline, or should I say brings it to a conclusion. Thanks for your interest in such things. As an aside, the motorbike in the picture is a modern version of the bike once owned by my wife.

Hah! You can't do better than a good apocalypse. I limit my contacts to RU-vid and email. It keeps things simple and uncomplicated. The music and art can take a front seat and I can remain in the shadows, so to speak. Jim.

Hi. The meaning of Axeline as I understand it, is a line drawn on the ground that says to an enemy, you can come no further. We sometimes use the expression a line drawn in the sand. I guess we might say, here I make my stand. The guy screaming? I have no idea, it was probably a twisted and distorted sample. Then again it might be me after an enemy just buried his axe in my head. Lol

@@Jimkirkwood24 Yeah, that's of course a sample sound. And it is so "unprecedented" in the album, that I'm very curious to learn what is the story the track tells us. My imagination often creates bright and vivid stories as I live through the music. Would you please share the story you had in your mind when creating Axeline?

@@IngileifMage I am not sure that it is unprecedented within the track. Axeline was written at a time when I was emersed in a North European belief system, heathenism. This included a well developed eschatology. Ragnarok is the final battle at the end of the age when the powers of light and darkness cancel each other out. Imagine two armies so vast they stretch beyond the horizon, facing off against each other. I don't personally think Axeline does this justice and if I was to write this now I would approach it with a very different attitude. A battle of this scale must include copious amounts of dark and twisted sounds. Most mythological systems have their version of this final conflict and Christianity is no exception. Armageddon is a Christian belief in a final battle between the powers of light and darkness, if I may call them that, though the outcome is radically different to the heathen one. We will all of us be called upon to take sides in this battle, which may come a lot sooner than we imagine. If it does you will get to hear plenty of screams and cries! And to draw your own Axeline. It is not a happy subject.

@@Jimkirkwood24 Thank you so much for the answer! I'm surprised because I expected there was a fantasy story with a main character behind "Axeline" track. And I called the scream sample "unprecedented" since it really is different and unique from the rest of the album sounds. Oh, and by the way, why does it always have to be two sides in the final battle? Can it "realistically" be three? Or more?

@@IngileifMage You are quite right, the affairs of men and angels and gods are never as simple as the stories suggest. Tolkien probably grasped this truth better than most in his Silmarillion creation myth. People form alliances and break them. The enemy of my enemy is my friend so to speak. For myself, I began to write more music inspired by writers of fantasy, Moorcock, Tolkien, Babylon 5, etc. Later, I was writing music inspired by Heathen myth and more direct myth and strange conspiracy theories. By the time I got to where I took a break 2011/2012 I was beginning to think again about writing music inspired by fantasy, this time the stories were my own creation. Foxhalt Edge, Canterbury Black, Corvis Christi. There was other stuff going on as well. Long story short. By late 2018/19 I was already thinking about writing again. Now I had a clearer idea of where I wanted to go. A Presence of Light, The Fire Beyond the Gate, and Elric-A Winters Tale, formed the first part of the Tenebrae series. This was followed by The Hermit of Bryn O'r Garreg series (Logres) and more recently Herongale which continues the story into modern times. This new music is all inspired by fantasy writing and more true to my roots whilst at the same time accomodating my religious beliefs. The next album I have in mind, Tenebrae-The Moonbeam Station, the characters of Elric (Zachariah Winters) and Radagast from Middle Earth, (the bird man) meet and hold a conversation about the nature of reality! Both of these characters are really quite mysterious. Moorcock, like the Star Trek series, held the soul to be mere energy which dissipates at death. I utterly reject that idea. In my story world, (Tenebrae) The soul continues after death, although in the context of a fantasy world. When it comes to the origin of stories, including myth and religious belief, all stories seem to have sprung from a common source, obscured by time and changed according to place and culture. The original Axeline began in the realm of god's and angels. It was a huge war that resulted in the enemy of souls (Lucifer- Stormbringer) being cast out of that dimension. And of course, every religion and storyteller have their own version of that, including Tolkien and Moorcock. Trying to make sense of it is a complex task because we do not have the full story. I approach it from a Christian angle because that makes the most sense to me, at least, of the world in which I live and what is happening right now on the geo political stage. This is especially true of the apocalyptic story unfolding right now. The armies of the World will gather in a place called Megiddo, which is just North of Jerusalem. Hence the name Armageddon. Plans are already in place for such an event. The hatred of the Jewish people continues unabated. The Axeline is being drawn. I hope this brief but probably too long an explanation will suffice for now. Jim

Hi. Well there is not much worth saying about those days. My own inclination and influences led me towards Black Metal, or what became Black Metal. But the rest of the band were pulling in different directions and lineups. People coming and going. And there were too many arguments and disagreements about style and content. We changed our names like teenagers change cheap aftershave. It was no great surprise we never got anywhere. It was a life-changing moment for me when I discovered synth music and began to write music inspired by Tolkien and Moorcock, as well as Neil Gaiman and North European Paganism. There is as they say, history. Jim

@@Jimkirkwood24 did you and that band ever record anything because I would love to hear your old band?

@@Dvng10ndweller No, and I for one am profoundly grateful! It would be excruciatingly embarrassing. That is not an opinion on Rock/Black Metal, just my own pathetic attempts to emulated my heroes.

@@Jimkirkwood24 haha! Fair enough who were heroes?

@@Dvng10ndweller I thought of them as heroes as a teen. Today I think of them as influences. The main influences are obvious. Writers of fiction and fantasy. Tolkien, Lewis, and Moorcock. These remain far more important to me than musical influences. I think I have reached a stage in my own writing where any musical influences have long been established. I have listened extensively to prog rock, folk, Berlin School, classical. At the moment I am listening to Neal Morse/Transatlantic and Dream Theatre, as well as the occasional Dungeon Synth artist such as Erang. Folks make suggestions as well, which is nice. I keep an open mind. Jim