Veil & Subdue Blog

I’ve just been commissioned to do an original musical score for Theatre Saint Augustine’s January production of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen!  The music will be available on a limited-edition CD around the same time. Stay tuned for more details…

In 1995 I was living in a farmhouse outside of Lexington , KY. I was still recovering from the end of a long-term relationship the year previous, and I found the calm of the countryside to be a welcome refuge. There were four of us total living in the farmhouse, and it inevitably became a makeshift creative commune. I embraced it.

It was that winter, alone in my tiny bedroom, warmed by my quaint, one-log fireplace, that I began to focus more seriously on music. With microphone propped on top of my Casio keyboard, and Tascam 4-track cassette recorder on standby, I began composing and recording. I proceeded in the direction of some of my favorite influences at the time: The Cure, Bauhaus, Christian Death, Siouxsie and others. Not surprisingly, the recordings from this time-period were thick with layers of reverb and echo, and the lyrics were all inevitably maudlin in some way or other.

I was recording under the name Candle back then, and created “album” tapes from time to time to give away to friends. The tape that I was working on then was a 90-minute work entitled Dismal Hollow. It is there that the song Pieces On Me first appeared.

In the years since, I’ve considered dusting Pieces On Me off and re-recording it. It was in the final days of working on Veil & Subdue that I realized that I needed a “song of frustration” from the female character Semele’s boyfriend, Colin. Almost immediately, Pieces On Me arose in my memory, demanding a new life. Sure enough, with a few tweaks to the lyrics it fit perfectly into the context of the V&S story arc. It proved to be the perfect lift into the final act, actually, as well as is one of the few straight-up rockers on the album.

Veil & Subdue
By Kara Pound

“Two local musicians conceptualize goth-rock opera”

Local theatre co-founder and musician, Paul Ramey, can’t pinpoint his inspiration. “All of my life I’ve been influenced by concept albums,” he said referring to the similarity of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” to his new goth-rock opera CD, “Veil & Subdue,” in which he wrote and performed most of the songs. “It’s a whole album telling a story.” Along with concept albums, Ramey’s work is also inspired by Greek mythology, Neil Gaiman’s dark comic book series, “Sandman,” and, most interestingly, a close friend’s nightly brush with a phenomenon called, “night terrors.”

Anna K. Meade, Ramey’s good friend for nearly a decade and fellow Theatre Saint Augustine co-founder, has experienced these medical and psychological episodes for most of her life. “This is not a very well understood phenomenon,” Ramey said. “There isn’t much help out there and it’s very debilitating.” Night terrors are explained as when a person is abruptly awoken from sleep to extreme terror and the temporary inability to regain full consciousness. Gasping, moaning and/or screaming can also accompany them.

“Instead of a medical explanation, I wanted to look at a possible mythic, god-like cause for night terrors,” Ramey said of the storyline for the opera in which he co-wrote with Meade. The two were curious about the mythological undertones of the episodes back two or three thousand years ago when there weren’t necessarily medical explanations for such things. They also always knew that they wanted to collaborate on a creative project together.

The result is a two-disc, 22-song rock-goth opera that chronicles the ill-fated love between the god of dreams (Morpheus) and a mortal woman. The self-funded, three-year-long project, classified by Ramey as darkwave or “a wide range of musical sounds with a gothic edge,” was recently released on his own label, Masque Records – ensuring total creative control.

Meade and Ramey have always had grand aspirations for their project – wishing that one day, it will grace a stage or screen. “The hope from the beginning,” Ramey said, “is to create a complete work and do as much as we can to make it real . . . so that someone theatrically trained can put [the production] on.” With recent success of their Theatre Saint Augustine productions like “Private Lives,” the two may not have to wait too long to see their dream become a reality.

Veil & Subdue is for sale locally at Needful Thingz, 215 W King St., and Music Matters, 196 SR 312, and online at www.veilandsubdue.com.

© The St. Augustine Record

See the review: http://staugustine.com/stories/100409/community_2027756.shtml

If you live in the United States, chances a better than not that the last thing you heard from Marc Almond was via Soft Cell, who gave us that wonderful early 80s technopop masterpiece: their splendid cover of “Tainted Love.” However, if that’s all you know of Marc then you’ve missed out on one of the more eclectic, misunderstood, dynamic solo careers in music today. The last 30 years may not have been kind to Marc Almond if you judge his work only by top ten smash hits (although he did have a number one in the UK with 1987′s “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”), but Marc has nonetheless been very kind to his loyal fans, giving them a steady stream of romantic, dynamic works that span a rainbow of delicious, exotic genres.

“Orpheus In Exile: Songs of Vadim Kozin” is the newest bold brushstroke on his ever-expanding musical canvas. “Orpheus” is actually the second of Almond’s forays into the Russian musical landscape, the first being his recent “Heart On Snow” album. But where “Heart On Snow” provided a wonderful overview of beloved songs from that country, “Orpheus” narrows the focus on “Russian Orpheus” Vadin Kozin, a singer/songwriter who, though immensely popular in his day, was largely swept away in Stalinist paranoia and general homophobia of the early 20th Century, to be largely lost in the fraying edges of an evolving Soviet state.

I absolutely love this album! Those familiar with Maurice Jarre’s classic “Doctor Zhivago” soundtrack will be delighted to find similar textures: snow-laced gypsy strings and aching accordians which, from the first note, transport the listener into the forgotten Russian-edged French Chanson style of music.

The album starter, “Boulevards Of Magadan,” whispers of the dark ache of being captive in a faraway cold land, with only a longing for distant Paris feuling the soul (Kozin would know; he was himself imprisoned in a gulog in far away Magadan for many years). From there Marc hand-picks songs of love and passion: the up-tempo “Forgotten Tango,” the sad farewell of “My Fire,” the violin-laced “I Love So Much To Look Into Your Eyes,” “Friendship” and “Brave Boy” make no mistake as to the depth of Kozin’s desires. Sweetly veiled yet equally overt at times, Marc’s selection does much to bring Kozin out of the closet of yesterday to reveal what must be considered Russia’s first gay icon.

The most devastating number must be “Beggar,” the sad story of the life of an old beggar woman on the streets. Once an enchanteuse with “beauty staggering”, she is now lost forever to advanced age and destitute poverty. Followed by the painful but sweet “When Youth Becomes A Memory,” one can be sure that Marc’s contemplations on the changes that come with age are very personal. And, yes, if anyone remembers the song “Youth” from Soft Cell’s very first album, these selections can be especially poignant!

Orpheus is a grand gesture from Marc: he has never been in better vocal form, and his reserved, subtle stylings hit just the right flavour to match the exquisite orchestral production of collaborator Alexei Fedorov and The Rossia Orchestra Ensemble. And by the way, it’s worth noting that “Orpheus” also features some of the most beautiful CD packaging I’ve seen in a long time. The cover art is what I would describe as a turn-of-the-century poster lithograph, with minimal colors which are slightly offset from each other to create the illusion of a quickly manufactured concert poster. It’s bold and dramatic and very Russian, it captures well what awaits inside.

For someone like Marc, who has made no pretense of his love and fascination of fame and image, there’s no mistaking who the real star of this album is – Vadim shines through on every song, and I give great credit to Marc that he does not get in the way of his subject matter. It’s a delicate line, and Marc proves to be a surprisingly sublime master. It’s a very long way indeed from the often over-the-top Jacques Brel covers of old!

“Orpheus In Exile” is clearly a labour of love. It’s a sublime album that captures the soul of a man much loved in his day, eventually forgotten to most, blacklisted because of his passions, but prolific until the end. As such Vadim Kozin can well be considered a perfect reflection of Marc.

Hi guys! So, I’ve mostly been “hitting the internet streets” with Veil for the past week or two, sending email letters as well as mailing out hard copies of the CD, inviting various online goth zines to check out the stuff and maybe do a review. So far have gotten some good responses, and even some inquiries about the eventual stage production! I’m also scheduled to be interviewed for St. Augustine, Florida’s newspaper weekly entertainment insert, Compass, in the next day or two, which I’m very much looking forward to. Local exposure is very exciting!