Enchantment of the Tortoise Lyre (Charon the Ferryman)

Available from all the usual digital music platforms from 1st June 2025, the album can be pre-saved from Spotify now:

Studio quality audio (available in 24-bit/96kHz resolution!), complete with a PDF booklet of the detailed album notes, will be available on 1st June, from Bandcamp:

The lyre featured in this performance has a resonator fashioned from a foraged Greek land tortoise, with goat skin soundboard - custom made in modern Greece, by Luthieros:

About the closest thing to taking the 2,400 year old Elgin Lyre out of its display cabinet at the British Museum & actually performing on it!

This presentation features track 11, "Charon the Ferryman". In Greek mythology, Charon was the son of Erebus, god of darkness, and Nyx, goddess of night – he was the ferryman who transported the souls of the deceased across the river Acheron to the Underworld. Payment was required to cross; souls who were unable to pay risked wandering along the shores of the river for a century!

This piece attempts to evoke a feeling of sinister darkness & foreboding by the formless improvisatory nature of the track, which features again, my own chromatic variation of the ancient Greek Dorian Mode; as also featured in track 3, "The Sorcery of Circe" & track 8, "The Hex of Hecate".

The more unsettling, more percussive attack heard in this piece, is courtesy of my carved wooden plectrum, which opens up an entirely different soundscape to the slightly thicker timbre, heard in the rest of the album, which featured a plectrum made of carved goat’s horn. The original 'live' recording of this track, in which my recreated ancient Greek tortoise lyre can be seen in action, can been seen featured in the following unlisted video, (which also featured an older draft of the final new album cover):

For full details of my many 'musical adventures in time travel', please check out all my official artist links below - many thanks for watching!

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[rudylittlewolf]

This really got me in my soul. The mystical tune and the haunting illustrations are perfect together. I've always loved the story of Charon, and the images that have been created about him helping the lost souls. Beautiful work, Michael! You've amazed us again!