Ravens reveal past ages
Entry posted by Onliest Smeg David
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Following on in a similar context to some of my earlier blog subjects here's a band that were one of the first in the Neo Medieval genre....
AND you've likely heard their music before!
Driving rhythms, ancient melodies and sounds of past times: With fascinating huge drums and self-made bagpipes Corvus Corax (aka The Kings of Minstrels) bring the spirit of old ages back to life.
Throughout their years of medieval music, since the late 80's, the Berlin musicians have contributed significantly to the development of Medieval Music as currently known. Their music was influential to an entire scene from Moscow to Mexico City. They toured in Japan and China, the U.S. and Canada as well as all over Europe.
Because medieval music theory was dominated by ecclesiastics, it is often difficult to determine from the existing manuscripts just how the secular medieval music sounded. Corvus Corax draws on a number of sources to try to make their music as authentic as possible: they have used documents that "condemn profane music" as an indicator of what the music might have sounded like, and drawn on nineteenth century scholarly treatises for information. In many cases these treatises are unreliable, as they impart more nineteenth century interpretations of medieval music than factual information on what the music was like.
With mystical and myth-enshrouded albums they awake old gods and legends, they review the Celtic and Nordic traditions and present the Viking culture in modern times. Everyone who has seen the masks and costumes at shows must confess that they succeeded in re-inventing the Vikings.
Corvus Corax aren't “just” playing medieval music. Corvus Corax combine ancient music with modern fantasy, they experiment with different cultural sounds and crazy instruments. No matter, if they are playing at a club venue, a concert church, at a knights tournament or in front of thousands of Metal Heads: Corvus Corax know, how to make people dance and jump around like crazy – as known from the St. Vitus’ dance in middle ages.
This creative heritage conservation of Corvus Corax delights people all over the world: That is why none other than Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer ("Gladiator“, "Pirates of the Caribbean“) approached the kings of the minstrels and initiated Corvus Corax’ writing of the music for "Ironclad“. In the BBC documentary "The Crusades“, presented by Monty Python-legend Terry Jones, their bagpipes and drums are to be heard as well as in the computer game "Dragon Age“. Finally the producers of the highest-grossing TV-series “Game of Thrones” were impressed and invited them to play live for the series on set.
CORVUS CORAX is the Latin name for the common raven.
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