In My End Is My Beginning

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2022-02-08

Label: Antigen Records

Physical release on 8 February 2022: https://antigenrecords.com/releases/in-my-end-is-my-beginning-pre-order/

This album, inspired by the words of Mary Queen of Scots, is set to dulcitone and embedded with air recorded at many of the places she lived, was imprisoned and died in.

With influences from French Chanson, the troubadour tradition and contemporaneous composition by William Byrd, for example, the record showcases lyrics by the doomed secretary and guitar tutor David Riccio or Rizzio and transposes sonnets and letters by Mary herself.

Two pieces; 'Quand Vous L'Aimiez' and 'Que Suis-Je Hélas?' are in French - Mary Stuart's first language - to capture the exact meaning of her words, while other songs such as 'Dry My Hair, My Feet Are Clean' are influenced by the history and settings of Mary's life.

MacGillivray has also released a poetry collection to accompany this record - 'The Gaelic Garden of the Dead' - which is available separately from Bloodaxe Books. In it are published 35 deconstructed sonnets to Mary (one for each step she descended on her way to execution) which were chewed, ground and spat out for fifteen minutes - the length of time her lips were said to move after decapitation. Some lyrics on the album are taken from these Petrarchan sonnets, such as 'In Dreams that Snow in Dream'.

The dulcitone was chosen for two reasons; as a Scottish instrument (made in Glasgow in the 1800s) and for its diamantine, crystal sound in reference to Mary's frequent use of diamond imagery in her work - particularly 'The Diamond Speaks'.

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