These are the fragments of thought, sensation and musings of Shakespeare's Ophelia as she drifts downstream to her watery grave. She is aware of the sights and sounds of life that continue on all around her (don't they know it's the end of the world?), and she muses on these, too. As she floats, looking upwards at the sun and the treetops from below, pieces of the songs and stories she has heard since her childhood dance in and out of her drifting consciousness. She wonders if she will be made into a magical harp or fiddle that will sing out her fate, just like the drowned girl in Bows of London...
The world labelled Ophelia insane, and who knows, perhaps she was... or perhaps it was more that she had a message that was too hard to hear. How eloquently Ophelia communicates the darkest depths of sorrow, grief and loss, the places from which so many humans shrink.
lyrics
The water a pillow of shimmering green, my face is so cold...
O sun, swimming high in the waters above,
soothe me with your bright gold.
This means I shall never grow old!
The world is a button, a bauble, a bubble. My garland of flowers
all fades by the forenoon, all dies by the evening,
Interminable hours...
Scrubbed clean of my innocent powers.
Swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming
Till somebody finds my body.
Floating past children who play on the banks,
How they laugh and skim stones.
The world is a feather, a frost-flower, a foundling
That nobody owns.
Perhaps they'll make harps of my bones...
Swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming
Till somebody finds my body.
Swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming,
Will someone make harps from my bones?
credits
from OPHELIA album,
track released June 18, 2021
Vocals, guitar, autoharp & keys: Angeline Morrison.
Composed, arranged & performed by Angeline Morrison.
Recorded, mixed & produced by Angeline. Final mix by Nick Duffy.
Cover artwork by Nick Duffy, from a photograph by Angeline Morrison.
"Bewitching and otherworldly... Morrison's voice is eerily confiding, strangely present, insistent even at its quietest"
Folk Radio UK.
Believing in the beauty of sad songs, weaving folk, soul and beat sounds of the '60s into a tapestry of the human heart. Homespun sounds that reside in a nostalgic universe.
"Dark, unsettling folk that verges on the hymnal" BBC Introducing....more
'Andromeda' by Alex Rex is a thing of dark beauty, an examination of a wounded heart that is both forensic and poetic. Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow
I literally cannot get over the ingenious brilliance of this artist. Intricate instrumentation and the voice of a 19th century medium in tight midnight-black taffeta... Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow
Beautiful folk music in the widest sense of the word - full of space and light, with a voice so pure it stops you in your tracks. Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow
I saw the sisters live, pre Covid, in a tiny chapel in Settle, North Yorks. Mesmerising, beautiful, no amplification and as raw as you get, a memorable gig. This record expands on their creativity and unique offering to the World of Folk. A beautiful album crossing several musical genres. JohnT42