Fern Knight is the eponymous third full-length release from this fixture on North Philadelphia’s internationally renowned musical community. As the primary cover for Margaret Wienk’s singing and songwriting, this record fully unleashes her style of melding acoustic and electronic sounds, her careful orchestration alongside the improvisational strengths of the quartet, well-placed strings and crystalline vocals. Displaying her classical roots and psychedelic leanings,Fern Knight will be released into the world by the VHF label late Spring 2008.
———————————————
Northern Liberties’ nu-psychedelic/chamber-folk scene strikes again with the third volume of “Fern Knight” (Revolver, B+), a magical mystery trip built around the wispy incantations, guitar and cello work of the Espers’ Margaret Wienk. Jonathan Takiff/Philadelphia Daily News 5/7
For five years, Margaret Wienk has been telling a story, and loyal listeners have followed her into the lush fantasy world she has created, getting lost among the twisting melodies and alluring imagery that called out like a mysterious thicket of dark woods, emanating both a natural beauty and sinister aura that are impossible to resist. On her third album, the self-titled Fern Knight, it sounds for the first time like she’s willing to emerge from that fantasy and set foot on familiar ground, though she brings much of that compelling dryadic spirit out with her.
Fern Knight has been Wienk’s vehicle since 2003, when she and collaborator Mike Corcoran released Seven Years for Severed Limbs, a sleeper masterpiece that introduced the group’s dark, gothic folk intentions. Fern Knight draws much from the British folk of artists like Pentangle or Vashti Bunyan, whose music has a decidedly Celtic or medieval feel. It identifies with nature and with earthy themes that border on pagan, but ultimately the music is an evocation of feeling and emotion rather than a particular set of dogmas. Simply put, it is beautiful music that draws energy from the landscape and fires the imagination with its elegantly constructed melodies and poetic lyrics.
Fern Knight begins with “Bemused”, a song drenched in cascading harp and sharp yet subtle stabs of acid guitar. It inaugurates the first of the album’s three segments, this one still deep within Wienk’s fairy tale, and it’s impossible not to be entranced by the song’s charms. Listening to her sweetly sing the song’s closing mantra, “lapping sea foam with your fingers that stretch the circumference around”, as her voice overlaps and harmonizes with itself, it feels as if the song is plummeting downward, pulling the listener down the rabbit hole. “Silver Fox” and “Sundew” follow with equally delightful excursions into the fantasy. The band is at its finest here, as members Jesse Sparhawk, Jim Ayre, and James Wolf create a solid foundation of sounds, blending the electric with the acoustic and threading neatly with Wienk’s arrangements for strings.
The album’s second segment is where Fern Knight enters the real world, with a travelogue triptych that honors particular landmarks. “Synge’s Chair” and “Loch Na Fooey” are songs for the west of Ireland, the former detailing an unfruitful trip to discover the favorite spot of playwright John Millington Synge on the Aran Island of Inishmaan, the latter hailing a body of water in County Galway. “Hawk Mountain” describes the eponymous sanctuary in the Pennsylvanian Appalachians. All of these places represent the margins of civilization, places where the push of civilization butts up against the last outposts of unbridled nature. “Synge’s Chair” captures the gloomy wonder of the stormy Aran Islands, and of Synge’s work in particular, which immortalized the persistent will of the people there, who lived both with and in opposition to the natural forces around them.
The three tracks which close the album comprise the “Magpie Suite”, a work that is a culmination of the progression seen on Fern Knight, where the music departs from fantasy, emerges in the margins, and finally confronts reality. The suite, also written during the trip to Ireland, is a stark meditation on the frightful potential for environmental decay that hangs over our world. It’s an extended keening, in which Wienk looks into a possible future and laments the devastation, with nothing but memories of the vistas that were once so inspiring and uplifting. “All is lost”, she sighs in “Part II”, “All is gone / waking nightmare”. It’s quite dire, a funeral dirge for the Earth. It’s also a reminder that no matter how pleasing it is to indulge in fantasy or escape to the edges of the world, one cannot escape reality and must ultimately take part in its caretaking.
Fern Knight , like most self-titled albums, is in many ways a statement of purpose. It’s a wonderfully full realization of the many aspects of Margaret Wienk’s abilities, as a songwriter, as a musician, and as a storyteller. She’s conscious that great beauty and great darkness often go hand in hand, and deftly balances both throughout her work. On Fern Knight it’s her bright voice that lights the way, and even as the music descends into the depths, that light is never extinguished and makes approaching the darkness far easier. Michael Patrick Brady/Popmatters.com 5/6
Fern Knight and Ex Reverie are part of the same Philadelphia scene that spawned Espers, so the two bands naturally gravitate toward the gothic side of the freak-folk spectrum. Both outfits also feature bewitching female vocals, howling guitar distortion, and the unsettling undertow of cellos. Ex Reverie offer the best description of the sound on their MySpace site: “Glam Rock from the year 1066.” Max Goldberg/Flavorpill.com.losangeles 5/4
. there are few nicer, eerier classically imbued children than crystalline singer/songwriter Margaret Wienk, her phantasmagorical Fern Knight, and that Philly ensemble’s moody improvisational mesh of the electronic and the acoustic. It’ll be a perfect Sunday for Fern Knight as it marks the debut of the harp, cello and violin-filled electric light orchestra’s new songs that will appear on its third CD, Fern Knight. Love and learn.
– A.D. Amorosi/Philadelphia Inquirer 4/25
A bewitching mix of madrigal and folk, FERN KNIGHT‘s eponymous album is both earthly and ethereal, balancing the lightness of harp strings with the weight of 70’s psychedelic guitar lines that slice scythe-like into soundscapes both foreboding and sweet. This is magic with a ‘ck’, a woodland mysticism conjured through ESPERS frontman GREG WEEKS‘s understated production and MARGARET WIENK‘s clean, unaffected vocals, minor melodies, and lyrics that delve into the natural and supernatural.
“Bemused” opens the album, a slow, searing gothic fantasy fleshed out with bright harp arpeggios and the steady accompaniment of JIM AYRE‘s wah-inflected guitar. “Never sleeping never waking, the moon is pushing ever pulling me” Wienk sings. The song slowly builds in tension and intensity until her vocals are layered in a round, filling out the sonic space before disappearing into a haze of chimes and shimmering cymbals.
“Silver Fox” follows in a similar path with even more enchanting lyrics, and “Sundew” and “Synge’s Chair” have a different feel, with a focus on inventive chamber music instrumentation that brings to mind Colonial times.
While the cover art and the brief moments that move into hippie folk territory are not quite my cup of twee, on the whole Fern Knight is entrancing Renaissance fare with a psych rock twist. The melancholic cloud that hangs heavy over the album surrounds the songs with a subtle darkness that’s at once unsettling and warm. Difficult to categorize and impossible to fully figure out, fans of Led Zeppelin’s folk excursions, Rasputina’s historically-inspired cello rock, and Spacemen 3’s neo-psychedelic drone should all find elements to enjoy in this curiously enchanting release.
Kristin Sollee/BigTakeover.com 4/29
Sure, the name “Fern Knight” is cute, sounding like a villain from Captain Planet. But the music of this Philly clouded-sunshine-folk troupe is shades far darker-so maybe a “Fern Knight” could’ve once been a love interest of Alan Moore-era Swamp Thing? The finger-picked figure of “Sun Dew” arises straight out of the opening of tune by ’60s folkers the Millennium, with a Leslie’d voice from a mildewed acid-casualty self-pressed rarity from the ’70s to match. When viola, muted toms and sloooowly decaying cymbals get stirred in, it marks it instead from the 21st Century vintage of folk, the vines grown in the Espers vineyard. “Sun Dew” tastes of mulberry wine though, mulchy and with tannins that linger like ghosts. – ANDY BETA /PaperThinWalls.com 4/10
Fern Knight’s third album will on many levels appeal to fans of the early 21st century variations of acid folk music. It has some of the same characteristics: gentle female vocals, a tentative delicacy, and an audible debt to British folk and folk-rock of the late ’60s and early ’70s (although singer/songwriter/cellist Margie Wienk is American). There are some differences, or at least unusual shadings, that set them off from the pack. There’s a pronounced chamber music feel to much of the instrumentation, particularly with the liberal use of cello and violin drones, as well as harp accents. Often it’s darker and tougher, however, than some other artists who follow similar lines. There’s a sinister grit to the playing, and melodies that belie but do not undercut the sweetness of Wienk’s vocals, and while the arrangements don’t have anything like a classic bass-drums rock rhythm section, there are some occasional blasts of ferocious electric guitar. The overall impact treads the border between the haunting and the truly spooky, though some of the material, especially “Synge’s Chair,” sounds like it could almost be traditional in origin. If the influence of vintage British acid folk is audible, it must be said that it is in the strength of the songs and the clarity of the production; this is more impressive than many obscure relics of much earlier vintage in the same style that are championed by some collectors. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
The last album by Fern Knight (Music for Witches and Alchemists) listed eight performers in the lineup. Although the core of the band seems to number four these days, guests appear on the new offering and the texture is no less rich. The quartet comprises Margaret Wienk (the artist formerly known as Margie Wienk) whose voice and string playing is to the fore along with Jesse Sparhawk (harp & electric bass), Jim Ayre (Flying V guitar, drums & other percussion) and James Wolf (violin).
At the controls of the analogue recording equipment is Greg Weeks and he injects some admirable trademarks to the production sound. sparing Leslie speaker effects on the lead vocal, for example. There are beguiling conjunctions here too: harp, wah-wah guitar and ‘cello offer rapturous support to Wienk’s vocal on Loch Na Fooey.
The songs are much inspired by nature: a journey round an Irish island and places closer to Fern Knight’s collective home on the Eastern side of the U.S. Milton’s “Paradise Lost” provides some verse material too as Wienk and Greg Weeks trade lines in the opening of the ambitious three-part “Magpie Suite”, which later features vocals from Orion Rigel Dommisse and Gillian Chadwick.
There’s no escaping the similarity to the first Espers album, this especially evident when “Hawk Mountain” on the new record reminded me so readily of “Hearts and Daggers”, which was seldom far from my turntable 4 or 5 years ago. However, that’s not to detract from the lovely sound of Fern Knight, the band and the album. 7/10 – John Cavanagh/Foxydigitalis.com (22 April, 2008)
Enigmatic Philadelphia quartet Fern Knight creates drenched mysterious psychedelia full of oddly juxtaposed instruments upon their third effort. Though plenty of so-called psychedelia flutters out of the East Coast lately, the four piece truly deserves the description. Do not be fooled by the preposterous name, for not very often does one hear music that creates inexplicable dread this palatable.
Musically, the band forms a whirlpool of Krautrock, Irishness and Renaissance Baroque. One can even hear some Jackson C. Frank influence lurking about. Vocalist/cellist Margaret Wienk writes the basic frameworks of songs lyrically concerned with dark, phantom cackling tribulations blooming into the ceaseless healing glory of nature. Beaming with lush textures, each song suggests a micro ecosystem swooping with placid harp, squalling violent guitar, electric bass, droning violin (played by a noted Sun Ra scholar?) and subtle theatrical percussion. Simple, steady production allows the diverse instrumentation to flourish while only briefly indulging in cliche ridden studio effects such as vocal delay.
The eponymous album kicks off with the hallucinatory yet soothingly somber “Bemused,” which is wrought from crystal harp, malefic wah guitar and rolling ocean cymbals. Lyrically, the song depicts two landscapes with a powerful skill of suggesting the presence of a non existent (or lost) narrative. The first verse probably depicts the recurring theme of the New Jersey pine barrens with lines like “Folks have gathered here from miles/ To see the pines that grow so wild.” The other landscape describes a circular hazy sea side. With authoritative clarity, Wienk softly sings the closing, clenching line “Lapping sea foam with you fingers that stretch circumference around” – the puzzling lines lingering in your head for days.
Written in Ireland when the band got stranded on the Aran Islands due to high seas, “Synges Chair” depicts its narrative within droning string instruments approaching the tone of bagpipes. The timeless composition convincingly could have been written 500 years ago before taking an unsuspecting left turn into the astral planes with lysergic electric guitar and swelling space cellos grinding.
A minors skeletal acoustic guitar propels “Sundew,” inspired by New Jersey’s folklore rich pine barrens, specifically the landscape and unique species that abound there. Lines like “Fiddleheads and pitcher plants will be our umbrella/ Cedar roots our island and the bog our new sea” roll from Wienk’s vocal chords with alluring eccentricity, convincingly dispelling the fraught, didactic pitfalls when celebrating nature in song. Disappointingly, the integral folkloric mystery of the New Jersey devil does not run amok anywhere in the song.
The last three songs form a suite meshing apocalyptic visions and optimistic hippie earth love. “Magpie Suite Part II” forms the most intriguing of the three with bass harp chords sounding like brief, booming piano and a slo-motion, cascading waterfall of an electric guitar solo. The song even has atmospheric wind sounds and a medieval melancholy pied piper flute solo. Simple lyrics like “Orange-red/ Flaming ball/ From our window” become evocatively descriptive within the musical context.
The source of the album’s flaws are found in the band’s over eccentricity and borderline, new age allegorical fuss. Like an awful under produced Enya out take, the silly titled “Loch Na Fooey” bubbles with way too much wobbly, gobble goosy, optimism-drenched trippiness. The album also dwells too much in the same drugged out dramatic tempo.
Against all pseudo cringing odds, Fern Knight has created a hypnotic, enticing concept album about nature. The quartet offers an intriguing beguiling psychedelia that will plummet one into snatching, searing and overwhelming glimpses of transcendence. One would want to have this album handy when the apocalypse descends. Through original musical contexts (who the hell else puts a harp and an electric wah pedal drowned guitar in the same room?), this quartet offers an emotional spectrum of tribulation and regeneration. Matthew Proctor/StereoSubversion.com 4/23
The folks in Fern Knight return with another unique album that is wonderfully out of place in today’s musical climate. This band is the project headed by Philadelphia-based guitarist/cellist/vocalist Margaret Wienk. Wienk and her associates create otherworldly progressive pop that seems to be influenced by some of the best British progressive art bands from the 1970s. Some of the compositions on this album could be compared to Curved Air and even Henry Cow at times…but that only gives a slight idea of what this music sounds like. The songs on this self-titled album are soft and thoughtful and feature some truly absorbing and unusual (and extremely subtle) arrangements. At the heart of the music are Margaret’s beautiful, heartfelt vocals. This album is the perfect fusion of folk, pop, and classical music. Folks who may be becoming increasingly tired of the same old generic throwaway pop of the twenty-first century will find a lot to take in here. Cool, classy cuts include “Bemused,” “Sundew,” “Loch Na Fooey,” and “Magpie Suite: Part II, Part III.” Highly recommended… (Rating: 5+++) Don Seven/Babysue.com April
Another beautiful piece of dark magic from Philly’s inner circle. Fern Knight is the guise of songwriter and gossamer voiced singer, Margaret Wienk. This is the most fully formed and devastatingly potent album she’s done under the Fern moniker yet. Her voice hangs unobscurred and terribly assured above the harmonic scrabble of sun baked guitars and harrowing strings, played amiably by a group that includes Jesse Sparhawk, Jim Ayre and James Wolf. Recorded by PA-Folk ringleader extraordinaire, Greg Weeks and put forth by VHF, this certainly has all the right pieces to the puzzle. Despite the cast and crew that bolter this production though, it really is Wienk’s voice and songwriting that shine on this eponymous album. When the tone is somber, her voice captures you in its sadness but never lets you feel pity and when the mood turns light, it pulls the sun from every corner of the room like drawing a shade. So far its been quite a fair year for folk but this is definitely the strongest folk release, and more to the point one of the strongest records I’ve heard all year. This is definitely one to anticipate. Fern Kight’s S/T is out May 6th. RavenSingsTheBlues.com