And so we are left with the final track, The Disenchanting. All 29 minutes of it! This track sums up the spirit of the entire album, moving as it does through several sound worlds.
It opens with Willow Hill, a straightforward song lamenting the faeries leaving England. This notion can stand as a metaphor for the aggressive rationalization that has beset humankind since the Age of Reason and the so called Enlightenment. It  protests  the rise of mechanistic science and the superstitious slavery to facts to which society seems to be in thrall. Facts are not truth! Any mature investigation into what has come to be called science these days may well  reveal a lucrative career built upon a theory that has been ruthlessly championed irrespective of its real merit. Often, political agendas overwhelm integrity in this area.
Anyway, Willow Hill keens the loss of our disconnectedness to what one might call the Real World as set out by the likes of Goethe, Steiner, Gurdjieff and any number of Indian Sadhus and Masters
It Goes:

Willow Hill.

This was my garden, sweet as May

For every living thing and a palace for the King.

I gave but a whistle and then I looked away

And when I turned around it was nowhere to be found.

I danced for the Midnight Court on Willow Hill

When the moon was low,

And the starry clusters trailed a glittering thrill

On the Earth below.

With a faerie’s child ‘cross the moonlight wild

Just to run through the even flowing hours.

By hedges and styles, through the meadows for a million miles

The universe was ours.

The wasteland sprawls across the distances unfurled

The long night falls upon a cold and tragic, daylight on magic

A phantom haunted world.

As good as gone.

I sat with the Vanished Gods on Willow Hill

A forgotten spark.

In a cloak of dreams against the evening’s chill

In the fire lit dark.

I heard chaos sing with the unborn king

In the silver hills of heaven

My heart fought to find ancient echoes on the Willow Wind

A gift from the Sacred Seven.

This was my garden, sweet as May

For every living thing and a palace for the King.

I gave but a whistle and then I looked away

And when I turned around it was nowhere to be found.

I watched the Atlantic roll from Willow Hill

 On its Western coast.

With a thousand sails across the evening spilled

The Enchanted Host.

To an ancient tryst in the distant mist

Where ocean to ocean roars

Their ships running free far across the swelling summer sea

Towards the impossible shores.

Now when the moon is very, very low and gusty echoes come and go

Down through the ages clear and far, the horns of Elfin blowing from the morning stars.

This was my garden, sweet as May

For every living thing and a palace for the King.

I gave but a whistle and then I looked away

And when I turned around it was nowhere to be found.

The Spring shall come again to Willow Hill

Down the primrose lanes

And Spring shall bring the bees and daffodils

Bring the April rains.

But from that blessed shore they will sail no more

Now the future is paying for the past

They have locked fast a door that was never ever shut before.

The withering spell is cast.

Betwixt and between the verses, there is a section that evokes a picture of the Atlantic Ocean. This leads into a cheery little Hornpipe and from there into a vision of Lyonesse, the ancient mythical land out in the Atlantic off the coast of Kernow. This glimpse of the legend is heralded by the words "Now when the Moon is very very low" and one could imagine standing on a high cliff gazing Westward into the mist and the mist parting in a blaze of gold and rose  to give a glimpse of the wonderful Lyonesse. All to quickly , though the vision fades and nothing is left but shreds of windblown mist.

We are then back to the Willow Hill theme by which we are led into a new realm. The Berceuse, or lullaby, called The Rain Curtain indicates a shift in reality. Gone are the symmetrical shapes and forms that went before, now everything is moving and flowing light and shade as we find ourselves in the forest of Broceliande, the garden told about at the beginning of Willow Hill. The world has changed, now form gives way to texture and shifting light and shade. I have tried to create this musically by keeping all the melodic lines asymmetrical and yet unchanged. Tricky. After wandering for a while we may come across the Oak tree in which the sorceress Vivienne entrapped Merddyn. 

The strings and solo guitar announce the Faerie's Funeral. At first just a hint in the distant wood  then moving into a funeral march that draws closer until it bursts into the clearing in which we stand and passes by in an angry blaze of drums and horns.

This album does not have a happy end. It leaves you with a question really.

Lots of Love

Francis xxx