#shrimper chatter

[shrimper]

PLS TALK ABOUT DUNMESHI GHOST TRICK AU!!!

YAAAY WELL!! IF YOU INSIST!!

so briefly to discuss the main roles. chilchuck is yomiel, izutsumi is sissel, laois is lynne, falin is the equivalent of kamilla and marcille takes on the role of missile ! (thus, marcille is also ray, && i’ll elaborate on this later)

the plot is similar to ghost trick!! (…kinda) (not really)

brief plot overview!! it happens in a similar enough universe to ghost trick, but the races from dungeon meshi pass over . i don’t think there will be a dungeon but don’t quote me on that one

but Anyway um. yeah chilchuck got divorced by his wife and it was BAD his wife took the house took the kids he was SO fucked. he dropped out of his job (which was…ummm. engineering maybe, if not rogue ?) and entered a spiral of depression > drink to feel better > hangover > depression. he was quickly gaining an addiction . LUCKILY FOR HIM he had a bit more sense than his dunmeshi counterpart — enough to recognise that his reliance on alcohol was a Bad Thing — so, in order to Recover (or at least replace it with something) he adopted a cat ‼️ he named her izutsumi and they became best friends, especially since it was likely chilchuck wasn’t going to live much longer after she died (half foot lifespans)

a few months into this he was falsely accused of armed robbery . he already had a pretty bad reputation around the area for being somewhat of a lousy guy, so he was taken into questioning and then. yeah whatever happened with yomiel 👍 temsik meteor, holding lynne (or in this case laios) hostage, etc etc

you know how this goes . chilchuck got revenge on the officers who cornered him && now senshi is in prsion . yeag . he (senshi) had two wards under his care, who were laios and falin. they all also shared an apartment with falins VERY close friend marcille who was very intelligent but not wise at all !

the first loop happens, and marcille got stuck there but sticks with it in the hopes of saving falin (…why? what happened to falin. can anyone hear me the number of plot holes in my own au are astounding). she eventually took the form of a log with a small sprout at the end of it (a reference to her staff) . she calls herself ‘bud’ !

you know the rest. izutsumi wakes up, sees chilchucks body & assumes it is hers and continues on without knowing how to read. etc etc .

“what about the characters you haven’t mentioned?” i’m working on it 😭!! i’m thinking senshi is jowd, Maybe (if not obvious by the story overview). kiki is inspector cabanela, maybe, and namari and kaka are her Right Hand Detectives(TM) with varying amounts of respect for her (playful sibling rivalry vs. kikimari perhaps?), but that does leave the issue of ‘why does senshi know kiki???? hwhuh’. shirou is the justice minister, maybe??? inutade is also here in the form of a dobermann i think. somewhere . inutade izutsumi best friends every universe

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 5

Courtney Marie Andrews

The lockdown continues, and live music has disappeared, replaced by a somewhat antiseptic and unsatisfying spate of live streamed shows mostly one person with a guitar on the couch in their living room.  We salute the courage and the effort but miss bands and audiences and even the chatter drifting in from the bar area.  In the meantime, at least for now, there are still lots of new records vying for our attention.  We present this Dust to catch up with some of them.  It’s an ecletic survey of contemporary classical, vengeful hip hop, psyche, jazz, folk and metal artists, all continuing to try to navigate a very difficult period.  Our writers this time include many of the usual suspects, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Tobias Carroll and Patrick Masterson.  

a•pe•ri•od•ic—For (New Focus Recordings)

for a•pe•ri•od•ic by a•pe•ri•od•ic

Silence is a rhythm, too, and a•pe•ri•od•ic dances to it repeatedly throughout their second recording. The Chicago-based ensemble has traversed the new music continuum, performing music by composers from Peter Ablinger to Christian Wolff. Sometimes that silence isn’t quite what you want to hear — the COVID-19 pandemic cut short its tenth anniversary spring season one concert too soon — but it proves to be rich loam from which to grow music on this CD. All four of its pieces were composed specifically for the group by individuals who recognize the merit of non-imposing sounds. That knowledge derives in part from the fact that three of the composers also perform with the group, but also from their long-standing engagement with post-Cage-ian and Wandelweiser material. Director and pianist Nomi Epstein’s descriptively entitled “Combine, Juxtapose, Delayed Overlap” feels like a ceremony intermittently perceived through an opening and closing door. Billie Howard’s “Roll” tucks the composer’s whispering violin behind muted French horn and voice, wringing intensity from the effort one must apply to following its retreating sonorities. Vocalist Kenn Klumpf’s “Triadic Expansions (2)” moves in the other direction, sprouting ivy-like from the slenderest branches of sound. By comparison, Michael Pisaro’s stately “festhalten/loslassen” is a veritable riot of unwinding tonal colors. As the decade ticks towards year eleven, rest assured that a•pe•ri•od•ic is searching for the next promising idea.

Bill Meyer

 Agallah — Fuck You The Album (Propain Campain)

Fuck You The Album by Agallah

This is a personal vendetta album. After more than 25 years in the game, Agallah has got to settle the score against the whole world. To say he just has a chip on his shoulder would an understatement. Thirteen songs of pure hate with the title quite properly reflecting its content. In his fight, the rapper strips down all the artistry, including the production. Known for making beats for other hip hop acts, Agallah here not only uses barely serviceable beats, he doesn’t even makes pretense he needs beats. Almost all the tracks work as a capellas. His gruffy voice and arrogant flow don’t need sonic support. And what support can you expect from the world full of phonies, liars, actors, pretenders, cowards and fair weather friends? “Stop pretending, my career is not ending,” he almost screams on “Telling Lies To Me.” If this CD feels like a dinosaur in 2020, then it says that it is not something wrong with this album but with the world.

Ray Garraty

 Courtney Marie Andrews — “Burlap String” single (Fat Possum)

Old Flowers by Courtney Marie Andrews

As the eponymous song of 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain amply demonstrated, Courtney Marie Andrews’ pipes are not to be fucked with. But while that was perhaps the most vivid depiction yet of her abilities, the Phoenix native’s delivery can be just as powerful on a muzzle. Such has been her approach thus far with what we’ve heard from Old Flowers, originally slated for an early June release but since pushed back to July (or beyond, who knows). The post-breakup lyrical territory was initially revealed with first single “If I Told,” but it’s the gently loping “Burlap String” I’ve had on repeat for much of the past month. Ever ended a relationship with someone and regretted it? Lush piano and a sighing slide guitar tell you Courtney has without her ever having to utter a word, and much of the song is an illustration of the internal conflict that lingers long after you’ve made the call. I’m inclined to write out the whole second verse here, but it’s the end of the third that lingers as Andrews evokes barely holding back tears: There’s no replacing someone like you. That ensuing pause runs bone-deep, its implication clear — no amount of Mary Oliver can save you from yourself.

Patrick Masterson

 Dennis Callaci — The Dead of the Day (Shrimper Records)

Some albums could be said to hum. In the case of the latest from Dennis Callaci, that’s meant literally: many of the songs on his new album The Dead of the Day feature warm clouds of feedback or droning organ notes. It’s a companion piece to his recent book 100 Cassettes, which features thoughts on musical icons throughout the year. This album’s focus is more insular: some of the songs have a drifting, improvised feel to them. But Callaci also taps into some terrifically subdued songwriting veins here — “Broadway Blues Pt. II” recalls the haunted dub-folk of Souled American, and Franklin Bruno’s piano lends a propulsive dimension to the ruminative title track. And on “Scoreless,” Callaci teams with his Refrigerator bandmate (and brother) Allen Callaci for a song that slowly builds from acoustic foundations to something modestly grandiose. Contrary to what its title might suggest, this album feels very much like a document of one man’s life.  

Tobias Carroll

 Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten — Tau Ceti (Astral Spirits)

Tau Ceti by Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten

Tau Ceti is a planet that is hypothesized to be similar enough to Earth that it could potentially support similar life forms. The three musicians that recorded this tape may come not come from the same system, but they fall into a harmonious orbit around a common circumstance — they were all in the same swanky studio, Halversonics, on a particular winter day in early 2019. One supposes that whatever they were rotating, they move towards the source of heat, since Tau Ceti builds slowly from chill acoustic exploration to a fuzzed-out solar flare. As they progress, abstraction burns away and velocity increases. It’s a gas to hear Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Lisa Cameron lock in behind Tom Carter’s increasingly gritty sound-bursts.

Bill Meyer  

 Tim Daisy — Sereno (Relay)

Tim Daisy - Sereno :: music for marimba, turntables and percussion (relay 028) by Tim Daisy

Sometimes the timing of even the most tuned-in drummer is foiled by external circumstances. Sereno was supposed to signal the end of an intense phase of solo practice by Tim Daisy. His intentions for 2020 included making an album of duets and writing music for two ensembles. But at press time he, like everyone else, is hunkered down with his family, and everything he had planned is on hold.  

Daisy’s stint as a primarily solo artist coincided with a reconsideration of identity; he wasn’t just a drummer, but a multi-instrumentalist and an orchestrator of electro-acoustic sound. Sereno is split between three elegiac marimba solos that showcase Daisy’s instinct for deliberate melodic development and five much denser constructions for imprecisely tuned radios, playing and skipping records, and Daisy’s strategically reflective drumming. If this record is the only new music that Daisy puts out this year, it leaves us with plenty to think about.

Bill Meyer

  Kaja Draksler & Terrie Ex — The Swim (Terp)

On the surface, this looks like quite the odd couple. Terrie Ex Is a Dutch electric guitarist in his mid-60s who still goes by his punk rock name. He’s a ferocious improviser whose scrabbling instrumental attack incurs intensity from any ensemble that doesn’t want to get bowled over, and he knows more Ethiopian tunes by heart than anyone on your block. Kaja Draksler is a Slovenian pianist exactly half his age whose recent projects include a fast-paced, idiosyncratically balanced trio with Petter Eldh and Christian Lillinger, and an octet for which she sets Robert Frost poems to a combination of chanson, Baroque chamber music, and thorny free improvisation. But neither got where they are by letting fear deter them from a musical challenge, and both of them have a fine awareness that one way of understanding their respective instruments is that they are pieces of wood with wires attached. Given that common understanding of music as a combination of coexisting textures and assertive actions, they work together quite well on this CD, which documents a performance that took place at London’s Café Oto in 2018. Scrape meets sigh, jagged fish-hook pluck meets sparse wire-damped drizzle, instinct meets intuition, and when the disc is done, it’ll seem quite sensible to dive back in and swim the whole length in reverse.

Bill Meyer  

 Errant — S/T EP (Manatee Rampage Recordings)

errant by errant

Errant is the one-woman project of Rae Amitay. Some listeners of metal music may be familiar with Amitay’s work, as vocalist for death-grind-hybridists Immortal Bird and as drummer for the folk-metal act Thrawsunblat. For Errant, Amitay has created songs and sounds that have little in common with those other bands’ aesthetic extremities. “The Amorphic Burden” may prompt you to recall the melodic black metal that Ludicra was making toward the end of that band’s storied run, or the sludgy drama of Agrimonia’s most recent record. In any case, Errant’s sound skews toward more luminescent atmospheres. Production values are largely pristine; Amitay wants you to hear clearly every string and cymbal strike. It makes sense. She plays a bunch of instruments well, and that’s part of the point: that one woman is producing all the sounds, and all the affect. She ends the EP with a cover of Failure’s “Saturday Savior,” and it’s the least interesting thing on the record. But even there, she presents the listener with something worth hearing. Her clean vocals are lovely, disarmingly so. What may be most impressive about this early iteration of Errant is the extent of Amitay’s talents, and how those talents allow her to encroach on the hyper-masculine territory of the “one-man” act.

Jonathan Shaw  

 Field Works — Ultrasonic (Temporary Residence)

Ultrasonic by Field Works

Stuart Hyatt’s latest compilation in the Field Works series is an absolute beauty — and timely given it’s being released during a pandemic whose origins may be linked to bats. The field recordings that the contributors used to create the music on Ultrasonic come from the echolocation of bats, and the approaches tend towards rhythmic or atmospheric. At the rhythmic end of the spectrum we have Eluvium’s majestic opener “Dusk Tempi,” akin to his work on Talk Amongst the Trees. Mary Lattimore’s glimmering harp patterns are fitting accompaniment to the chittering bat sounds on “Silver Secrets.” And Kelly Moran’s prepared piano on “Sodalis” sends the listener down a hall of mirrors, chased by gorgeous bass tones. At the more abstract, atmospheric end of the spectrum we have Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s radiant “Night Swimming.” Christina Vantzou blurs the line between the sounds of modular synthesis and bat sonar on “Music for a Room with Vaulted Ceiling.” And on Sarah Davachi’s “Marion,” the listener is immersed in a luminous halo of nocturnal overtones. Wherever the artists venture, this is a varied yet consistently evocative collection.

Tim Clarke  

 FMB DZ — The Gift 3 (Fast Money Boyz / EMPIRE)

The Gift 3 was initially set to be released in December 2019 but was postponed until now. DZ’s “Merry Christmas, pussies!” on one of the tracks doesn’t sound so odd, though, because the whole world has plunged into a constant holiday. The new album continues two trends. It carries on the “ape” theme from the previous album Ape Season. “Ape Activities,” “Keep It on Me” and “No Features” are the grittiest tracks from a disc where the prevalent mood is a sick worry. DZ made it out of the hood but had to be on the lookout as the enemies are out to get him. The other trend is that The Gift 3 continues the ideas of The Gift series. The songs have a usual verse-hook structure, are poppier and more relaxed than on Ape Season. DZ, thankfully, doesn’t try to sing anymore but hires some singers on choruses. The hardest track here is “High Speed” with Rio Da Yung Og where Detroit/Flint duo spit vicious lines.

Ray Garraty

  Hala — Red Herring (Cinematic)

Detroit multi-instrumentalist Ian Ruhala wears his heart dripping from his sleeve on “Red Herring” his latest record as Hala. Skipping from the yacht rock of “Making Me Nervous” to the country blues of “True Colors” via power pop, The Kinks and Tom Petty, Ruhala manages to create a thread with deceptively simple melodies and the sincerity of his delivery.  There’s more than a touch of Kevin Barnes in the voice and the delight in throwing genres at the wall to see what sticks and, like Barnes, some of it fails to adhere. The pleasure here is in the sense of eavesdropping on the process and reveling in unexpected flourishes that refuse to be ignored.  

Ruhala writes a smooth love song and isn’t afraid to turn up the guitar or address politics on standout “Lies” - “I’m eating breakfast with the fascists/Oh man they stand about ten feet tall/My mouth is bleeding at their proceedings/They get their courage through a plastic straw” It may not be Guthrie but he makes it work through a leavening wit and a mid-tempo vamp straight from the solar plexus. “Red Herring” suffers somewhat from its stylistic roaming but a fundamental big heartedness and willingness to reach makes it an enjoyable trip.  

Andrew Forell  

 Las Kellies — Suck This Tangerine (Fire)

Suck This Tangerine opens with a loose groove and a grime smeared highlife guitar line, the voice enters with ironic invitations over choppy Gang of Four chords. In the new one from Las Kellies, Argentinian duo Cecilia Kelly and Silvina Costa sling taut bass lines and slash guitars over mutant disco rhythms for 12 tracks of slinky indie dance. Drawing on elements from Leeds, London and the Bronx, Kelly and Costa add dubby space and South American humidity to their sound, to elevate the album beyond the sum of its influences.  

Kelly handles guitar and bass, wielding the former like a cross between Andy Gill and Viv Albertine and unfurling loose funky serpents with the latter. Costa swings between ESG and The Bush Tetras and incorporates an array of hand drums that deepen and enliven the rhythmic pulse. There is a palpable and joyful chemistry between the two evidenced by their easy interplay and enhanced by the production that gives clarity and elbowroom to each instrument. If the lyrics can tend toward the perfunctory, they are delivered with a winking insouciance on put downs like “Close Talker” and “Rid Of You”.  Suck This Tangerine is a worthy addition to the growing collection of feminist post-punk inspired albums we’ve been dancing to of late.  

Andrew Forell  

 Mint Mile — Ambertron (Comedy Minus One)

Ambertron by Mint Mile

Silkworm, the band, may have ended in 2005 with the death of drummer Michael Dahlquist, but its legacy of slow, gut-socking heaviness, mordant wit and muscular guitar lives on, first in Bottomless Pit and now in Tim Midyett’s new band Ambertron. Midyett’s voice and clangorous baritone guitar is instantly recognizable, of course, to anyone who loved Silkworm, but the band diverges somewhat with the pedal steel played by Justin Brown of Palliard, weaving eerily though the slow buzz and moan of “Likelihood.” Jeff Panall, from Songs:Ohio, plays the hard, heavy drums that undergird these songs, giving them structure and forward motion. Other players include Matthew Barnhart from Tre Orsi and Horward Draper from Shearwater. Greg Normal of Bitter Tears contributes a mournful bit of trumpet to “Fallen Rock,” and Chicago alt-country mainstay Kelly Hogan takes the lead in “Sang.” The music is raw and morose; even dense strings can’t quite lift the gloom in “Christmas Comes and Goes,” a song as raw as late November in Chicago. And yet there’s a sort of resilience in it, a strength that comes through persistence. “If we could only find a way to bank the time we had together,” sings Midyett in “Giving Love,” his hoarse voice full of ragged loss, his guitar raging against it all and not quite beaten down even now.

Jennifer Kelly

 Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra — If You Listen Carefully the Music Is Yours (Odin)

If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours by Gard Nilssen´s Supersonic Orchestra

Perched atop his drum stool, Gard Nilssen sits where styles converge. He’s supplied the controlled boil that drives the free-bop combo Cortex, laid down some heavier beats with Bushman’s Revenge and exemplified long-form lucidity with his own trio, Acoustic Unity. In 2019, the Molde Jazz Festival recognized his versatility and forward perspective by anointing him the artist in residence. Besides showcasing his ongoing projects and accompanying heavy guests from abroad, most notably Bill Frisell, he got to put together a dream project. This 16-piece big band, which includes members of Cortex, Acoustic Unity, and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, is it. With the assistance of co-arranger André Roligheten, Nilssen has taken some of his trio’s sturdy melodies and turned them into frameworks for boisterous but subtly colored performances. With three basses and three drummers, this could have been either a mess or an uptight game of “you first,” “no sir after you.” But the rhythm crew shifts easily between swinging unisons and refractory elaborations. Roligheten often plays two saxophones at once in smaller settings, and one suspects that he has a lot to do with the rich colors that the horns paint around the featured soloists.

Bill Meyer  

 Matthew J. Rolin — Ohio (Garden Portal)

Ohio by Matthew J. Rolin

The ghoulish image on the j-card belies the sounds encoded upon this tape. Matthew J. Rolin is a relative newcomer to the practice of acoustic guitar performance; the earliest release on his Bandcamp page was recorded in late 2017. But he’s catching on fast. Switching between six and twelve-string guitars, he serves up equal measures of ingratiating lyricism and immersive surrender to pure sound. Opener “Red Brick” slots into the former category, with a heart-tugging melody that keeps doling out turns that’ll keep you wondering where it’s going and backtracks that’ll ensure that you never feel lost. “Brooklyn Centre,” on the other hand, grows filaments of string sound out of a pool of prayer bowl resonance centering enough to make you cancel your mindfulness app subscription due to perceived lack of need. Rolin develops ideas situated between these poles over the rest of this brief set, which runs just shy of 28 minutes and definitely leaves one wanting a bit more.

Bill Meyer

 Nick Storring — My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell (Orange Milk)

My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell by Nick Storring

What Jim O’Rourke did for the music of Van Dyke Parks and John Fahey on Bad Timing, Nick Storring does for Roberta Flack’s on My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell. The Canadian composer may not have O’Rourke’s name recognition or past membership in a very famous rock band going for him, but consider these parallels. He’s a handy with quite a few instruments, he’s an inveterate assistant to other artists across disciplinary lines, and he functions with equal commitment and fluency in a variety of genres. For this record, his first to be pressed on vinyl (albeit in miniscule numbers), Storring uses the lush string sound of Flack’s 1970s hits as a launching point for deep sonic immersions that are considerably more emotionally oblique than their inspirations’ articulations of loneliness and surrender. When he goes melodic, the cello-led tunes seem to reach for something that they never touch, and when he goes for slow-motion density, the music imparts an experience akin to watching the sort of cinematic experience where you can’t tell if you’re seeing a really slow take or the film has frozen at a single frame.

Bill Meyer

 Sunn Trio — Electric Esoterica (Twenty One Eight Two Recording Company)

Electric Esoterica by Sunn Trio

Sunn Trio, from Arizona, makes sprawling, multi-ethnic psychedelia that juxtaposes the scree and groan of heavy improvisational rock with the otherly chords and rhythms of the Middle East.  Opener “Alhiruiyn” slicks a trebly sheen over its surging, rampaging improvisations, more in the vein of Black Sun Ensemble than Cem Karaca.  But “Majoun” layers antic percussion and tone-shifting bent notes in a limber evocation of the souk.  “Roktabija The Promulgator” blasts a strident, swaggering surf riff, about as Arabic as “Miserlou” (which is, in fact, Arabic).  “Khons at Karnak” buzzes with hard rock aggression, but shimmies with belly dancing syncopation.  Because of the name, the preoccupation with non-Western cultures and the Phoenix mailing address, you might think that Sunn Trio is aligned somehow with Sun City Girls, but no.  All kinds of weirdness lurks in the desert out there, lucky for us.  

Jennifer Kelly  

 Turbo, Gunna & Young Thug — “Quarantine Clean” single (Playmakers)

Despite the subject matter’s potential (ahem) virality, “Quarantine Clean” slipped out almost unnoticed in early April and is the kind of muted performance Young Thug doesn’t get enough credit for (while, curiously, his followers often get too much derision for). For all of Thugger’s hyperfluorescent hijinx over the years that have produced earworms like, say, “That’s All” and “Wyclef Jean,” there’s another side that shows up in stuff like “The Blanguage” and “Freaky” where he lets the words do the work; that’s the subterranean sonic world we’re living in here as he opines on God’s role in the pandemic and why he’s lost so much money but still has to pay for his parents’ penthouse (which: welcome to the revolution, pal). Thug’s acolyte in slime Gunna, meanwhile, does most of the song’s heavy lifting with duties on the first verse and chorus, but it’s pretty hard to tell the two apart, such is the slippery restraint both opt to exercise here. The real star, then, is beatmaker Turbo, whose buoyant anchor melody is complemented by what sounds like a lilting flute. It’s a light touch from all parties, a mellow mood well suited to our time of collective party-eschewing shelter. Run that back in prudence.

Patrick Masterson

 Various Artists—Ten Years Gone (A Tribute to Jack Rose) (Tompkins Square)

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Various Artists

A decade on from the too early passing of the great American Primitive/blues/raga player Jack Rose, Arborea’s Buck Curran gathers friends, collaborators and younger artists inspired by Rose for a gorgeous tribute to the master. Mike Gangloff, who played with Rose in Pelt and Black Twig Pickers, leads off with a plaintive, sepia-toned fiddle lament (“The Other Side of Catawbwa”), while next generation experimental droner Prana Crafter closes with an expansive, space folk reverie (“High Country Dynamo”). In between, old friends like Sir Richard Bishop evoke Rose’s full-blown orchestral guitar playing (“By Any Other Name”) while young pickers like Matt Sowell take up the trail forged by Dr. Ragtime. Isasa from Spain and Paulo Laboule Novellino from Italy attest to Rose’s global appeal. It’s mostly guitar, but not entirely; Helena Espvall from Espers contributes a brooding, reverberant “Alcantara” on cello. Curran’s own “Greenfields of America (Spiritual for Jack Rose)” is slow and thoughtful, letting long bent notes ring out with liquid clarity; it’s a hymn and a prayer and a testimony to the wide influence of an artist gone too soon.  

Jennifer Kelly

 Emily Jane White — Immanent Fire (Talitres)

Immanent Fire by Emily Jane White

Emily Jane White gets tagged as a folk singer, but on this, her sixth full-length, the Oakland songwriter brings a fair amount of goth-tinged drama. Taut string arrangements and big booming drums lift “Infernal” well out of the woman-with-guitar category, and White sounds more like PJ Harvey or even Chelsea Wolfe than a sweet voiced strummer. Immanent Fire sticks, topically, to environmental concerns with track titles like “Washed Away,” “Drowned” and “Metamorphosis.” A foreboding creeps through the songs, pretty as they are, even piano lit “Dew” asks “Does poison drop like the dew?” Arrangements, by Anton Patzner, the composer, arranger and violinist of Foxtails Brigade and Judgment Day, give these cuts weight and heft, punctuating eerie melodies with thick swathes of strings, rumbling percussion and keyboards. The disc culminates in “Light” which begins in a whisper and climaxes in drum-shocked, orchestral swoon. Soothing background music it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

 Z-Ro — Quarantine: Social Distancing (1 Deep Entertainment / EMPIRE)

An unexpected seven-track EP bears an expected title from a Dirty South legend. Z-Ro’s usual topics — trust and loneliness — gain a new meaning in the time of social distancing. To keep away women who only want his money is a necessary precaution now. To be at the corner at the party is a rule for survival. Z-Ro is on his ground counting his dough alone in the house. Earlier he did it so no ‘shife’ (the title of one of the tracks) friends could rob him, now it’s just to obey quarantine rules. The first half of this EP is a bit muddled by unnecessary intros and reggae tunes but the second one hits hard. As always with Z-Ro, the hardest content takes the gentlest form (“Niggas is Hoes” especially is almost a pop song). On the final track “Life of the Party” Boosie Badazz drops by, giving his verdict on the pandemic: “Fuck Corona!”

Ray Garraty

[bewitchingbooktours]

Release Day Blitz Out of the Blue by Stephanie Rose Bird

Out of the Blue

Black and Blues

Book One

Stephanie Rose Bird

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Publisher: One Odd Bird Press

Date of Publication: March 22, 2020

ASIN: B084SNJ8K2

Word Count: 58,500 words

Formats available: E-Book and Paperback

Cover Artist: Najla Qamber Designs and Qamber Kids

Tagline: Out of the Blue is a young-adult, coming-of-age novel that seamlessly bridges elements of African American folklore and spirituality with Greek mythology.

Book Description:

When two worlds collide, only one girl can unravel the mythical threads and save her father’s life. . .

Mobile, Alabama, 1947

Bobby “The Shrimp Man” Daniels, a blues singer and shrimper from Mobile, lies unconscious in a hospital bed, suffering from a mysterious illness. His daughter Tina, a sheltered sixteen year old, torn between her love for her father, and her disappointment in his relationship with Kyane, his much younger mistress, is determined to heal her father, no matter the cost.

Kyane isn’t just a mistress, she’s a Siren, obsessed with her overwhelming desire to become human and merge her otherworldly singing voice with Bobby’s incredible music. She’ll do anything to get what she wants, annihilating anything, and anyone who stands in her way.

In order to save her father, Tina will have to travel to the Kyane’s world, a world of strange and magical creatures, and figure out how to wrestle his soul from  the Siren’s control. As Tina’s magical journey twists and turns, she’ll learn what it means to be a woman and what it means to save not only her father, but herself.

Out of the Blue is a young-adult, coming-of-age novel that seamlessly bridges elements of African American folklore and spirituality and Greek mythology.

Amazon     One Odd Bird Press

Chapter 5 Aello and the Harpies

Walking along, well, hobbling really, the Sirens are in their own little world. Traipsing down the fragrant and colorful path, they leave me alone. I watch them head into the woods down a narrowing path, flanked by wildflowers of every description. They begin to chatter away, with great excitement. The trio busy themselves, going back and forth about who knows what about whom. At least a couple of minutes pass by this way. The scent and delicate beauty of the woods is enchanting, and their words weave in and out of the powerful perfume kicked up by swaying leaves and blooms.

I’m at a loss. There ain’t no way I can understand what they’re saying anyhow because it’s in a foreign tongue. What I can tell is that one of them said just a few words and her voice goes to a higher pitch as she ends.

She’s asking a question.

The others disagree or have their own ideas. . . and so it goes.

Before I tire from trying to make out what they’re saying, my mind circles back to the odd but real situation where I find myself. I’ve left my Daddy alone to fend for himself. What of Rudy and Ruby? I didn’t know when or how I’d get back to them.

As much as I hate what Daddy gone and did, running off, with that woman-child-bird thing, who I now know isn’t even human, but a Siren, I’m kind of doing the same thing. Instead of being with one of them, I’m with three.

There’s something about these Sirens. They make me feel ill-at ease. Mama wouldn’t like me being with them. No, not at all. These creatures are certainly not of this earth. Never, and I do mean that, have I felt such a longing and desire to hear singing. Not even at church with the best of the choir singers.

The trio’s songs, they touch me way down deep in my soul. Daddy’s songs do that too but he is at a disadvantage, for with him there is only one voice, as deep and mellow as it is. Now, with these creatures, they have themselves and then something else, too, from far beyond my reach or understanding. Just as their cloaks left me wondering what’s beneath, the meaning of their haunting songs is also a complete mystery.

Like a paper airplane, their voices appear, seemingly out of nowhere and pierce straight through my thoughts, precise as an arrow. Soul-soothing sounds—the ones I’ve begun to crave

with everything I am—returned. The trio begin singing, hitting impossibly high notes that set my heart a pumping, then lows that stir the darkest depths of my soul. They hit harmonies I could’ve only imagined possible before this afternoon. They could do this whenever and from whatever distance they chose.

For once in my life, I am complete. Full and satisfied, my heart is jam-packed with a tremendous, inexplicable joy. Before today, I wouldn’t have thought any of this could be possible. I begin to shutter and shake behind them. After all, the only way I knew of to show true joy was to get happy. I’d gone into this place of ecstasy a few other times at our church, following the elder’s ways of rhythmically jumping forward and backwards until you land in a kind of bliss. It isn’t just the elders, Mama does it and quite regularly, too.

But this is different.

I don’t realize it until it’s too late. My shuffles, back and forth and back again create a distance between us. You could call it a gap.

In that happy state I’ve worked myself up and into, my eyes are barely open. Intruding into my new reality comes a sharp and insistent wind. I feel it, and see it. It picks up the cloak and shawls that the Sirens wear, probably to cover whatever it is that they walk on, causing them to hobble so.

Coming back into myself, the desire to see what’s beneath those cloaks remains strong. It could prove to be a key to understanding what these things are and what the Siren, who has entranced Daddy so, is made of. I’m pretty sure it isn’t the same flesh and blood and bone as the rest of us.

I’ve been straining so hard to see, I never even notice the wind has picked up even more steam. The sky darkens, turning nearly to the black of night, though it was been bright and sunny just a few moments ago. Now it’s as though I’m back home in Alabama, taken by surprise by a violent spring storm, maybe even one of our dreaded hurricanes.

A storm must be blowing in, off the sea.

A very large shadow lingers overhead. I look up and get the shock of my life. Without warning, a most painful scratch gouges my upper back. I can hear whatever did it tearing straight through my blouse. Afterwards a sharp, stabbing pain, spreads all the way down to my behind.

The only thing I can compare it to is a fish being gutted.

How much more am I supposed to take?

Heart pounding, and running as fast as possible, I pump my legs, trying to catch up to the trio. Instead of narrowing, the gap between us has grown to an impossible length. The Siren’s haunting song vanishes completely. My back is wet with sticky blood and sweat, causing my stiff cotton blouse to stick to it, bringing about more irritation. My mind is usually filled up with day-to-day concerns, but I got to tell you, fear was sweeping over me just like the cruel, swiftly moving northern wind. Sweating and bleeding, panic takes over.

Looking up again, I can see more clearly. It ain’t just fear overtaking me. It’s a gigantic beast—part woman, from all appearances and part beast—looking much like a vulture but larger. This odd creature seems to enjoy toying with me by swooping in ever closer. Apparently, this monster has scratched me pretty hard but looking at it, I imagine it can get much worse.

She is the storm.

The odor coming from it, gets caught up in fierce winds. Rotten eggs, the foulest of chicken, left too long in the icebox? I get the dry heaves and then retch.

I bend over from the waist. Its smell nearly knocks me over.

What would win out, fear or the great stench?

This is not the time or place for such thinking, Tina. You have to pull yourself from getting happy, and run like you never have before.

Why doesn’t the trio look back? Is this beast working with them? Through them?

What’s happening?

Another blast of foul air that smells like a trash heap, sweltering under the hot southern sun, assaults my nose. A hair-raising wind forces the foulness deeper into my lungs until I can taste the stench in the back of my throat. It picks up force, nearly lifting me up off the ground. That’s when the nasty-smelling beast swoops in. I run as fast as my legs can go, ducking and dodging all the while. In the end, it catches me. The thing grabs me up and into the air by the scruff of my neck.

Like a kitten in its mother’s mouth, I dangle in mid-air. Maybe it’s more akin to being wet clothing flapping about on a taught clothesline because I’m out of control with fear. My mind is getting fuzzy. I realized that, rather than having images flood into my confused mind, I must come to grips with being clutched up in the air by a huge pair of talons. The reality rests with me traveling along with an unfamiliar beast, kicking and screaming all the while. Thank God, after a short distance it comes close to the earth and drops me. I doubt my feeble attempts at getting free have anything to do with it. Lying on the ground I make the mistake of halfway looking up, gazing upon the beast in an attempt to figure it out.

Please Lord, don’t let it see me looking and decide to catch me up, once more.

My nose already tells me a-plenty. The beast stinks worse than any outhouse in town and I’m not talking an outhouse where the people put lime on it properly, if you know what I mean. If not, let’s just say, it has about it the most horrible smell you can think of. It reminds me of the time my favorite rabbit, Henry died. I didn’t have the heart to bury him. I waited weeks. Oh how

Henry wreaked as bugs crawled in and out of him. Finally, I took him to the seaside on a small gardening shovel. I released him into what I imagined to be eagerly waiting waters. This smell of the beast, it too has the horrible smell of death I experienced with my beloved Henry.

Whatever the thing is, a terrible wind either escapes from the beast or carries it around.

The wind and beast travel as one. The strange island of Athemoessa is sho’ nuff a mystery. Seems like the wind must’ve been an important part of this beast. Along with the wind comes its odor.

Farts from the heavens.

It’s all I can do to keep from retching up whatever’s still left in my belly. I told you about the sunny sky I encountered when I first arrived on the shore, once leaving the cave. In a short time that same kind of sky goes grey and then black, as I tilt my chin up. That’s because the monster is enormous, its body is much taller than mine. With its wings flapping about, it’s even larger than I could’ve imagined.

It wasn’t pleasant looking like the trio of sirens but it did bear a strange sort of resemblance to them.

What kind of world have I landed upon?

Are beasts allowed to mate with humans on Athemoessa? Is that how these bird-women, called Sirens, were made?

The creature is partly an old woman, with the lower part being an extremely large, powerful bird—probably five feet tall and ten feet wide from one wing tip to another. I can’t even imagined it back in the real world. It’s too outrageous, too absurd. This thing was bulky, smelly, and bald, save for a wispy ring of feathery grey hairs—not a dainty sort of graceful bird, light on its feet, like my rescuers. When I look closer, I feel another bubble of fear rise up in the back of my throat.

The creature’s talons sprouted from human feet.

It’s clear. I’ve met my match. More than my match.

Already tired to the bone and breathless from the unplanned journey here, there are yet more to come. Weary from the shocks I’ve been presented with in the strange new world, I fear I have nothing left to fight with, plus, I’m losing blood.

Wrestling in my mind with all the things that could, would or should be, I don’t even notice that the trio has completely vanished, as though in some magic act at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus—a poof and then off they go into thin air. All that’s left of them is the faint echo of their thrilling song, so faint, it well could be a figment of my feeble imagination, or a whisper between cousins under the covers at night. Still, just that little bit of it, makes my heart soar.

Did they ever really exist?

I must believe in them, for to believe is to stay sane, and you have to stay sane so that you can get back to Daddy, and Mama, and those bothersome twins.

Oh. Good. Lord. Did the Sirens rescue me from the sea so that they could use me as feed for this beast? Maybe that’s how they keep it away from their kind. I bet they thrive on bringing human offerings to soothe the hideous, smelly, winged-woman beast.

Despite the heat, I shivered.

While I’m busy letting my thoughts run all over the place, it just swoops in, headed down towards me, all over again. I come upon a thick log, with that and the sheer force of the wind it travels with, to say nothing of the wretched smell, I crash down hard on my left side. The force of the fall might possibly have broken my arm, or even worse, my ribs. While I didn’t hear a snap or crunch, the pain comes from somewhere out of this world. I could’ve peed myself, right then and there. I want to scream but the idea that screaming would attract more of these blood thirsty demons, wins over.

The overwhelming fear mixes in with the worse pain I’ve experienced in my fifteen years, and it overtakes me. My arm throbs and doesn’t want to move, no matter how many times I try to make it act right.

I’m totally alone, and terrified.

This beast is more frightening than anything I’ve ever seen—even my first time seeing the Siren materialize from out of a live oak.

No, that image can’t even compare.

The Siren is frightening in her way and even seems to bear a feeling of ill-will. Still, she didn’t harm my body. When I left her, I remained whole, though I got to traveling through space and time, ending up in this here strange place.

This here beast tells a full story just by how it travels about and smells. Like the trio, the Siren that is probably kin to them, and the Mermaid that brought me to this ghastly island, this beast doesn’t come from the world I know. In fact, I’ve got to say it must have come straight out of the bowels of hell.

Swap!

Slash!

It hits me again full force, while my mind meanders. I try to corral my thoughts, but I’m bone-tired and so very, very afraid. This time it grazes my flesh with its razor-sharp beak. With hands flailing about, I try to fight it off or at the very least, shield myself from its pecks. Its beak is like a gigantic pair of scissors. I have to overcome my fears and get away from it or sho’ ‘nuff, I will meet up with death. No one will know where I’ve been. Having abandoned my family in their time of need, I’ll be a disgrace. My name will never be uttered, only whispered in shame.

This truly saddens me.

Daddy might not be perfect, but he’s mine, and I don’t ever want to be a disappointment to him.

Rather than continuing to flail about aimlessly, I pull myself from the ground, paying no mind to the blood droplets moving down my back or dripping down my chest, from my busted- up lip. Crawling to the side of the path, I find me a hefty bit of wood and I grab it up with my good arm, while the beast perches high in a tree doing what seems to be scheming on what to do next. I grasp a fallen, moss-covered branch, easy enough to lift, even one-sided. This chore keeps my mind, however temporarily, off my pains from the open gashes.

Next time, when that devil-beast approaches, I’ll be ready.

I’m telling you all this as though hours went by, between my thoughts and the beast’s moves, but nothing is further from the truth. The battle is almost constant. I fall, get up, brush myself off one-armed, and find a weapon, only to be picked up, dropped and pecked by the hideous monster once more. In the end I give up. I’m already weak from my journey deep into the sea and then finally swimming to shore at Athemoessa.

Why is all this happening to me?

That is my very last thought before its wing delivers such a powerful blow, it knocks me out. The world went to black.

Sometime later, I awaken firmly held by its two, piercing talons, carrying me who knows where.

For God’s sake. Enough of this bull shit.

No longer under the spell of the trio of Sirens, a new desire sweeps over me. Fear, my stalwart friend, leaves me. In its place sprouts the will to survive. My will and desire for survival will have to be enough to outwit the evil bird-woman. Then I can return to my beloved home and family back in Alabama.

Alabama wasn’t perfect, but it ‘shore beat the hell out of this damn place.

Instead of fighting the bird, I try to relax my shoulders. We fly high over the spindly trees of the island forest. Beneath them I see colorful flecks from thick patches of flowers. Down below, smoldering fires through off sparks like the lightning bugs back home. I wonder if the fires are warming the oddball creatures thriving on Athemoessa during the night. Fighting the bird-woman can only be harmful. If I fall from this height, I’ll most certainly perish even quicker than she had plans. As it stands, my purpose, as it relates to this stinking creature, remains unbeknownst to me, so with it I fly.

***

From a thick fog, Ligeia, Parthenope and Thelxiepeia appear.

 “Harpy! You evil Harpy, Aellopus!” They shout, dragging out every part of the strange name.

“Aello, put the girl down,” Thelxiepeia shouts up at us.

No reaction. The talons don’t loosen and we don’t return to the ground.

Parthenope, Thelxiepeia and Ligeia meld their voices together and direct the united sound skyward like a fire ball, toward what I’d just learned was a Harpy, nicknamed Aello.

“Please help me,” I scream down to them.

Almost hissing, Parthenope, Ligeia and Thelxiepeia merge their voices together into one sound. The buttery result is thrown skyward once again.

“Down, down, down, down,” the trio of Sirens chant, evenly, if not with a hint of threat, in a sing-song voice filled with woe that raises awe within me, though they aren’t directing their

words towards me.

“Wind-foot fool, wind-foot fool, wind-foot fool,” the Sirens chide, in a chant that is as alluring as it is frightening.

Aello slows her gigantic wings almost to a full stop. I wonder what she might do next.

Then, like the rest of us, she’s so taken with the haunting, enchanting harmonies that Parthenope, Thelxiepeia, and Ligeia utter, that she loosens her grip on me almost immediately.

I don’t know whether to be happy, relieved or scared half out of my wits. Guess you could say, I’m in a state that’s a mixing of all three emotions, all at once.

Falling.  . . I am falling. Can this day get any worse?

Aello must have decided it didn’t want anything more to do with me, or perhaps this is exactly what it wanted to do all along--let me fall.

Who knows?

Sweet Jesus, save me.

I’m falling and as I do, I’m greeted by the salty brininess of the sea. I’m being returned, from whence I came.

Aello? That Harpy has no sense in her thick ‘ole head, except to harm me. When I fall from her talons, a torrent of wind pushes me violently down into the sea. I can’t even begin to guess how deep I went. The very action of it knocked all the air from my lungs and all the sense from my brain.

I surface coughing and spluttering water from my mouth. I’m snatched up and plunged back into the water. I feel pain once again, this time from salt water gushing into my open wounds. Nevertheless, a warmth spreads out and washes over me, making me relaxed, at once. Quicker than a wink, more of her disgusting kind arrived.

Here to help or cause more harm?

I sink into the turquoise waters, made choppy by a gathering of Harpies overhead.

Harpies don’t give up easily. They also gather together like a gaggle of geese, though instead of migrating anywhere in particular, they just stir up trouble wherever they decide to go. The wind they kick up is something so fierce that I think for sure I’ll drown. That’s just how violent the sea is rocking me backwards and forward in their wake.

Just this morning, when I was standing in Daddy’s room, I wouldn’t have believed there was a place like this anywhere on Earth, or anyplace else, but a girl can get used to strange, and indeed, I had.

Instinct—thank God—kicks in, and reminds me to hold my breath, saving my lungs from being flooded by the salty water. Strangely enough, I relax. Relaxed as I was, it is almost as though I was in a deep-sea boat riding the wind-swept waters that would have otherwise threatened to take my life.

Nevertheless, down and down into the warm turquoise water I go. It’s like being on the world’s fastest merry-go-round. My head begins to swirl from all the motion, so I clench my eyes tightly shut and hope that gives me some relief.

No time to think, let alone pray, I’m just like a stone, caught up in a tornado, thrown from side to side, all the while dropping lower and lower down. As a stone, I’m swirling yet plunging. The last time I plunged, I was at least saved by a fast-acting Mermaid. With no promise of a Mermaid to save me, this time I’m plunging to what will probably be the thing we all dread--a painful and lonely, violent death.

***

I’m figuring this is how things work around Athemoessa. After what seemed like forever, and a day what seems impossible happens. The Mermaid returns. She pushes my body with her head, and brings me back up to the surface, swiftly thumping her tail. The cave where I find myself is magnificent but at the same time, it’s tricky to make your way through it, and back to the sea. Inside, it shines and glitters like the rarest of jewels. Narrow, moist and the deepest blue- green you can imagine, it’s just about more than I can take, its beauty, I mean, yet strangely it’s also just right. You see, I always did love being in and near the water. That’s why I never want to leave the Gulf Region that I call home.

I love this Mermaid.

With her sweet manner, she’s almost like an angel, and she has the voice to match.

Are all the creatures musical? Can she sing like Thelxiepeia, Parthenope and Ligeia?

Reappearing from the depths, this time she was riding a graceful dolphin. With a fresh wave of warm water, the two came close enough to touch. Grabbing my hand gently but firmly the Mermaid pulls me toward her and the dolphin.

I ain’t never thought about riding no sea creature. I’ve ridden me a horse, mule and donkey, and that’s it. I know enough to have the good sense to let my body relax and go along with how the animal moves. I also imagine the journey ahead is going to be long, with many twists and turns because that’s how I got here. It be best if I want to live, and believe you me, I do, I’ve got to mount the dolphin and ride along with the Mermaid.

On the journey, we pass a silver school of tiny fish. They all head in the same direction, going this way and then that, just as suddenly as if they’ve heard a bell. Their movements are like a dance and it leaves me feeling dizzy because to keep up with them means moving my head

back and forth as quick as flash.

The Mermaid has somehow firmly planted herself atop the dolphin. I hold on as best I can to her waist. Her wet hair is shining, even underwater because it’s so dark, it flaps into my face, leaving me without sight at times.

We’ve apparently left the cave and it’s left behind with great relief. There are critters, great and small in there, along with masses of seaweed. I can’t see, so much as feel the critters, slithering on past me as I hold my eyes tightly closed, trusting my fate to the Mermaid and her dolphin steed.

We come out into the open seas. Again, I think about Parthenope, Ligeia and Thelxiepeia.

Why had they brought me to Athemoessa in the first place? What do they want from me?

It’s a mystery, but perhaps the Mermaid knows something.

Deep in my bones, though their song is thrilling, there’s a sense of dread when I think of the Sirens. It tightens up my guts. It isn’t just the cravings the singing brings to life within me, it’s that I also lose all grounding in space and time when I hear them, so lost am I with the desire to hear them.

No. There has to be a dark purpose within their enticements. They’re soul-suckers after all. When their song leaves me, I no longer want to live.

What type of creatures are Sirens?

Hands on the Mermaid’s hips, I realize I ain’t alone with my thoughts. I can maybe communicate with the creature, right in front of me.

“What business do you have with Thelxiepeia, Parthenope and Ligeia, and more importantly, what business do the three of them have with me?” I asked, speaking slowly and as

plain as possible. No answer.

“Mermaid, what purpose do the Sirens have? What do they want with me and my Daddy?” I tried to be clearer.

She seemed to understand perfectly.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” she speaks and it sounds sweeter than a wind chime. “Yes’m,” I half-said and half-asked.

“I’m not a Mermaid!”

 “What? Um, I’m sorry. But you’re also not human. What are you?” I asked feeling embarrassed.

“I am a Nereide. We are sea spirits. There are many of us. We are good to people, at least when we want to be, and we have special powers.”

I’m held captive by her tone and way of speaking. “I do apologize ma’am.”

“No need to apologize and it’s not ma’am. My name is Galatea.”

These so-called water spirits, Nereides, I guess it was, they ain’t human, ain’t Mermaids and certainly ain’t American. As impossible as it might seem, they’re very capable of understanding English.

“Kyane, the one you think of as a vixen or red hot pepper, Kyane, is it? You have called her girl, child, woman, angel, demon, you’ve thrown it all at her. Kyane, is her name. She wants to be among the humans. In fact, she wants to become one of you.”

“What?” I gasped toward Galatea, in shock.

“Indeed, Kyane, not only wants to be human but she has fixed her sights on being with your father. Unheard of in our world. She’s attracted to his deeply resonate, soulful song and wants to live with it forever,” Galatea finishes flatly.

“Ma’am . . . I mean, Galatea, excuse me? His song?”

“Sirens are all about voice, and they express themselves through singing.”

 “Across oceans, seas, and the Gulf of Mexico, through caves, waves and over the tops of cliffs, your father’s mournful song, filled with longing for life’s greatest pleasures, it touches a Siren, in a place we didn’t know existed in them. Straight in her heart.” Galatea said, as though surprised the words had escaped her lips.

“Your daddy, people call him, Bobby “the Shrimp Man” Daniels, correct?” “Yes’m,” I said out of force of habit.

“Well, the Shrimp Man, has gone and done the impossible, reversing all that we have ever known. Rather than sucking in and luring men to what would become their deaths, your daddy’s song has disturbed a Siren’s purpose, and their entire way of life. For that someone must pay,” Galatea told me, making fresh fear swell up deep down in my belly. Now, our beloved Kyane has left Athemoessa and never wants to return to be with her sisters. Remember them? Parthenope, Ligeia and Thelxiepeia?

She pauses and then carries on.

“Kyane could care less about her sisters. She no longer is she content to lure sailors as they have always done. She has set her sights, and her beautiful voice, on one thing only, actually—melding herself, and in the process, her beautiful voice, with your daddy’s.

“She wants my daddy for what? I don’t understand.”

“Look, child, Siren’s don’t really know the first thing about love. Kyane is no different.

She wants your daddy to feed her empty soul.”

About the Author:

Stephanie Rose Bird is the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning, “Sticks, Stones, Roots and Bones: Hoodoo Mojo and Conjuring with Herbs.” Her other books include: “365 Days of Hoodoo,” and “Four Seasons of Mojo,” all three were published by Llewellyn Worldwide. Bird also contributes to Llewellyn Spell-a-Day,” “Llewellyn Herbal Almanac” and “Llewellyn Magical Almanac.” She is the author of: “Earth Mama Spiritual Guide to Weight-loss” (Green Magic Publishing), “A Healing Grove” (Lawrence Hill Books), “The Big Book of Soul,” (Red Wheel Weiser/Hampton Roads Publishers) and “Light, Bright and Damned Near White: Biracial and Triracial Culture in America and Beyond.” (ABC-Clio).

She is a novelist, published by One Odd Bird Press, in the Young Adult Fantasy and Magical Realism genres. “Out of the Blue” is her debut novel in the Black and Blues Series. One Odd Bird Press will also publish “Pine Barren Blues.” She writes and paints where she lives (Chicagoland) with her husband, near her children, and along with some very busy animal friends.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/stephanierosebirdauthor/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/s.r.bird

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephanierosebi

Website: www.stephanierosebird.com              

Blog: http://stephanierosebirdstudio.blogspot.com

a Rafflecopter giveaway