A haunting, tempestuous call to long-ago times went out Friday night when Corvus Corax captured the main stage and audience at the 21st annual Roots and Blues Festival.
Half-naked, clad in unusual clothing and playing mostly handcrafted bagpipes, horns and drums, the band exploded with neo-medieval or medieval metal in the way of free-spirited minstrels of yore.
No lullaby here, rather sounds that hearken back to deep-in-the-gut ancestral roots.
This was the band’s first appearance in Canada and one that was welcomed by festivalgoers, who discovered much to their dismay Saturday that their CDs had already sold out.
The band’s alter ego Berlinski Beat wowed a packed audience at the Boogie Barn Stage Saturday night with their explosive cocktail of wild, frenetic street music.
“We would explode if we didn’t do something different,” laughed drummer Norri Drescher of the band’s creative energy and decision to create Berlinski Beat as a second band four years ago.
Corvus Corax emerged 25 years ago and, while the music might seem wild and untamed, it is the product of careful research of ancient manuscripts.
The oldest song the band performs travelled to Europe some 3,000 years ago from Asia and nothing is newer than medieval.
“We don’t use Renaissance music,” says Drescher, noting the painstaking research required to locate the material, that includes music rooted in ancient Viking, Celtic, Chinese, German and French cultures, among others.
Roots aside, Drescher says the band’s aim is to connect people, never to say “we are only this, or that.”
“When you find music from medieval times, you usually only find the lyrics, and when you do find old music, because the instruments had such a small range, it was easy to identify when to go up and when to go down,” Drescher laughs. “But it is never telling about the rhythm, about long or short notes, so we are kind of free to do our own thing.”
Drescher explains that as ancient peoples roamed Asia and Europe, their music travelled with them.
“Paleontology is quite similar with Corvus Corax,” he adds. “Finding old music is like a dinosaur; you find only a little bit of it then compare it to other old, traditional stuff to find the roots.”
The band further fuels their performances with high-powered pyrotechnics, something that wouldn’t be permitted here in wildfire season, and also performs opera.
Calling their music a very deep string to history, Drescher explains the band’s own history is a story of East and West, with two of the seven band members escaping from East Germany through Hungary, prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The name Corvus Corax is the scientific name for common raven and, says Drescher, originates from a tale of a baby raven the two escapees acquired while travelling to freedom.
The bird was a female and went on tour with the band. She found and mated with a male – for life. One night he flew away and never returned and, two weeks later, she died of a broken heart, says Drescher.
Looking out towards Mt. Ida and offering high praise for the festival, from organizers and volunteers and audience, Drescher says the band would definitely like to return, if invited.
In the meantime, the search for ancient notes will continue in such places as Bulgaria, a country that remained closed for a long time and one in which some of the old music has been kept alive.
And if the band returns? Look for more Viking and Celtic music as well.
