An unusual combination, a book with accompanying music. “Heroes & Traitors”, a nicely printed book contains ten short stories by the American author James Bravewolf and various nice colourful, abstrahized illustrations by David Deinert. Attached is a cd containg ‘ten exclusive tracks plus bonus material’ of Days of the Trumpet Call, which can also perfectly be appreciated on their own. People who know the music of Raymond P., who also plays an important role in the sound of Von Thronstahl, won’t be very surprised by he music on this album. Lovely neo-classical hymns, nicely mixed with spoken word passages. Floating synthetic waves of strings, piano and acoustic guitars.
The music of TDOTTC certainly has filmic qualities, so it’s certainly suited as the soundtrack of a book. My favourite composition is the second one, ‘Young German mother’, which has a haunting melody. The stories in the book take you on a trip to various places like Germany, Bulgaria and the native land of the Apaches, and so do the titles and text samples on the cd. The music is certainly beautiful as usual, my only criticism is that there is not much variation, the songs sound rather alike. But perhaps this is done intentionally, to not distract you too much from reading…
More about the book later, when I finished reading it…
There is also a German edition available.