Welcome newcomers, and old friends alike!
The moon is dark, gathering us in a moment of pure shadow.
Though creatures of anguish
and archons of fear
move to bend the land in a dark plan,
We, the animals of the woods,
know strength and resilience
through our shared lore and kept council.
Our love for each other
and our honor and skill
shall lift up our communities
in times of great need.
Teachers, lovers, players - Blood kin, elders, children - Warriors, weavers, storytellers - Hails to thee! Bring forth thine craft for the freedom call.

At such a time as this, there is an abyss of dark waters to be crossed, for each of us and for all of us. So today, I will share with you the story of Silent Temple's third album, "Where The Waters Run Clear".
The year after I graduated college in Chicago, Eikthyrnir, the band I had co-founded and led for those 4 years, went our separate ways. I had already released 2 albums with my first project, Silent Temple, so I decided to pick that project back up as my primary focus.
My roommates at the time were the most recent bassist from Eikthyrnir, Mike Ewers, and a fantastic death metal guitarist and composer, Alex Torres. Mike was a fan of my work with Silent Temple already, and had actually learned multiple tunes from the first two albums of his own volition. Alex also played Viola and Puerto Rican Cuatro...
So after recruiting the original Eikthyrnir drummer, Kai Movagh, 2017 saw Silent Temple form as a four-piece prog-folk band, with me leading on acoustic guitar and vocals. Mike bought a fretless bass guitar, and Kai could lean more into his jazz preferences. I had a ton of practicing to do, as guitar had never been my primary instrument!
Alex, Mike and I lived in a three bedroom apartment in a four story brick building in the West Town neighborhood of Chicago, about 3 miles west of the South Loop. The closest rehearsal space we could get a room at was about a mile further west. I set up rehearsals as I prefer, three 2 hour rehearsals every week. None of us had a car, other than Kai who drove in from the suburbs, so we did a lot of walking and gear carrying. Thankfully we could use the PA of the other band Mike played in, Puke in the Ice Tray, who we shared the tiny plywood room with.
I'm so grateful for all the time those three put in! Not only did we work and play hard to actualize my compositional project, we were also fast friends. We would play video games and watch movies together, listen to Alex's extensive record collection and smoke hella weed! We would drink together and go to concerts and bars on the regular. Our apartment was lovingly dubbed “The Troll Cave” and saw a fair deal of revelry and debauchery. From those days could be written a whole family memoir of itself, however that'l have to wait for another letter :)
In just that first year, we played seven shows around the Chicagoland area, and recorded Silent Temple's third studio album, Where The Waters Run Clear.
~
During college I was introduced to psychedelics and marijuana. Musically, this most prominently deepened my love of folk music, particularly the late 60's/early 70's genre of Acid Folk.
The artists Pearls Before Swine, Malicorne, Comus, Gypsy, Kansas, Fresh Maggots, Robbie Basho... contained a certain sort of beauty that I became infatuated with. Fine art made of wood. The swaying of the trees through the strumming strings. Drums as animals in the brush. Smooth singing sunshine. Sweet smiling moonbeam. The songs of humans not at all separate from the soil. Natural, organic, like spring water. Like blood pumped from a beating heart.
And with the help of the mushroom, these elements created the conditions for otherworld journeys. For the folding of reality into the realm of the story itself. True immersion. The human imagination one with nature, in harmony and humility. Peace.
I would not discover it until a few years later, but this folkloric sense was me beginning the journey of communion with my pagan ancestors.
Through music and psychedelics, and though drenched in alcohol, I was slowly awakening to the fact that I was deeply depressed and suffering internally, carrying a massive and terrible weight for which I knew not how to call for aid.
My own music was thus influenced by both ecstacy and despair. I had written several pieces of music that I knew would go on the same album together, conceptualized on piano and acoustic guitar. Bits of lyrics scattered about. Most of the practice rooms in the two music buildings at school had pianos in them. Many of them basic uprights, however a few rooms had lovely old grands. One day, I was lucky enough to get a room with my favorite grand, an unpainted, brown baby Yamaha. A particular harmony came forth between us naturally, the lyrics along with.
“And one day we will fly to the edges of the earth.
And in our hearts we'll see what holds the greatest worth.
Forsaken and alone, there's no love that I feel here,
but one day I'll be free where the waters run clear.”
I knew these words to have come from a song from deeper in my past, “Ends of the Earth” by Colin Masson, from the album The Mad Monk and the Mountain.
“One day I will fly
where the waters run clear
to a swift sunrise
One day I will fly
To the ends of the earth
And my dreams will be waking – will be real.
I daresay Colin's poetry here is better than my version, however the music of what would be Silent Temple's third album's title track made the words sing wonderfully. Along with these words came spilling forth the album's concept and story.

Child of the Grave:
The earth had undergone nuclear apocalypse at the hands of humanity. A single human child managed to survive, deep in cryogenic slumber for hundreds of years after the dust had settled.
Child of the grave of all that we are
Born of the ruins, our failure, our scar
Saved from the fires and shielded from the floods
What's left to be born shivering in the dust
A memory of Eden is all that is left
One final dream dreamt in one final breath
Remembrance:
The child awakes from their chamber and wanders about. They see naught but still and grey, endless plains of dust and rubble, a choking, lifeless air. Yet they remember trees, wind, women, green, blue, and still experience the emotions of hope, spiritual high, adventure and nostalgia. The child does not have any understanding of what memory is, nor do they know what has happened to the world around them. They have just been born, yet they know inside much, much more than they find in the material world around them.
Before the days of still and grey, a spirit brought new life
And when your world I came upon, I traveled with new sight
And there behold, a vale unfold, a legend and a light
The wonders and the majesty forgotten in their might
And in the kingdom of the trees, a queen in silken gown
A love grew cold, the land was sold, the king has lost his crown
I fly beyond and seek within to fill the hole inside
For when your world I came upon, my spirit came alive
Long gone away with the rising of the sun
There was hope in newer days, there was beauty yet unsung
Sail with the moon to a land beyond the sea
In a valley of the stars I'll remember you and me
Far far away in a dream I fear to dream
I will wait for you forever in a world you'll never see
Walk with me now to a land of green and blue
Here our souls will stay forever though its end is coming soon
Fantasy Revealed:
The child delves further into their memories, dreams and imagination. One image that stands out is a girl in a white dress dancing in a sunlit forest glade. They feel an overpowering and innate sense that the visions in their mind must be real.
Walk with me to wonder - a magic land beyond
A vale of sacred mystery, we seek the hidden song
Far beyond the sunset, deep within your mind
Lift the veil wide open, a promised land you'll find
Cleanse yourself of selfishness, wash your hands of shame
Forge a new beginning and your life will live again
In your mind a story, in your heart a song
Walk a land immortal, the realm from whence we've come
Tell me all the secrets of a world has been set free
I'm silently awaiting a fantasy revealed
And in her white dress she was free
Just a child among the trees
In the forest she was free
And in her blindness she could see
While the world was searching heavens afar
For all they had seen
While she drifted the rain, what the world could be
And of the autumn have I dreamed
Just one breath among the trees
Of the autumn have I dreamed
And in her smile I'll hold the key
To my home and though it's lost in a dream
That's heavens afar
What is real in my heart is real enough for me
They had walked the mountains, and they had sailed the seas
There was endless wonder revealed to you and me
Tell me all the secrets of a world has been set free
I'm silently awaiting a fantasy revealed
Father Sky:
An interlude to our main story, this song is a folk tale of how we wound up in such a predicament..
The old man he came, along with the rains
Through summer and winter they fell
And with did he bring serpents and things
Uttered a verse and a spell
The children did plea for stories and dreams
Conjured in mystical light
The old man obliged, the mountain they climbed
To tell magic tales in the night
And the children to the harp, were singing in the dark
While the moon shone through the rain
to light their souls again
Carved into trees, runes they did read
One with the legend and the lore
The old man did pipe his flute every night
For children be happy and free evermore
And the children to the harp, were dancing in the dark
While the moon shone through the flame
to light their souls again
The village men came, the old man they blamed
As floods came and swept 'cross the land
By the words their God spoke,
hung the man by a rope
And the children were never children again
Long Gone Away:
The child of the grave is thirsty and hungry, but with no understanding of what food is. There is nothing to eat nor drink in the metal chamber they arose from, nor in the blasted and long since burned remnants of a building that once stood above it.
Incensed by their inner journey and forced by their gnawing throat and gut, the child sets out into the dust on a quest for the forest, the girl in the white dress, and the waters of life. Equal parts inspiration and desperation guide their fervent steps.
Long gone away beyond my will
Into the trees I wander still
Into the flowing river I see
Home of the old Gods far beyond the sea
There I can feel the warmth of the moon
There I will sail and find my spirit soon
Long gone away at the edge of the sky
I must away to where to home of dreams doth lie
Home, home of the wind, where your last breath sings to me
Though the words are lost, I still can hear the somber melody
Of the song, song of the hills, that has long been gone away
Rolling out into oblivion as the singers voices fade
Walk, walk with me now, in a valley of the stars
By the light of moon, may we meet there soon
Where the last few dreamers are
When stars are lost and suns are still
Perhaps a fate beyond my will
Will guide me to a land of green and blue
And end the pain always
Forged in the fire and carved in the stone
Maybe was written the wind had never blown
Fading into the mist of the past
My only love is what can never last
How I can feel what lies beyond the sun
Though I will never see its beauty won
Born of the life of all that once was grown
God now has died and left me on my own
In The Land of Green and Blue:
Though nothingness is all that graces the child's way, they gain a moment of peace meditating on a river deep within their waking dream. However after what seems like a long journey of thousands upon thousands of steps amidst this ashen realm, there seems to be no change in the land or air. Despair creeps back into the longing child's heart.
The leaves sit softly on the river
No somewhere out there, no care for time
That water flowing on forever
Hints at something divine
Maybe the wind's still blowing
Maybe the sun's still shining
Maybe it's all there to find
I know I can feel a soul, and dream a life
I found that love is blind
And when we sail away from here
We'll abandon pain and fear
In our land of green and blue
And in our lives we'll see the day
When peace and love will find a way
And we'll see that hope is true
And if I was born a child of the trees
Among the weary I know just what I'd be
A candle in the darkness, of ancient souls I'd sing
Far beyond queens and kings
And when they sailed away from here
They abandoned pain and fear
To their land of green and blue
And in my life they took away
Only God has heard me pray
That I'll see that hope is true
But where are the autumn days that carried us on the wind?
Why do the endless seas run dry?
Where are the forest beings whose wisdom gave us our lives?
Why can't I see the endless skies?
Once in a dream gone by I saw you by the riverside
But floods came and carried you from me
A memory's my only home, and longing's all I truly know
And love's just a fantasy revealed
Reaper:
The child reflects upon why this wasteland is the world they awakened to. Despair rises to anger, and they wish death to those who may have done this to them. They realize then that this very same anger may have been the cause of this desolate fate.
And when the autumn leaves had fallen
And all the flowers turned to grey
I heard the silent ones cease calling
And all was forgotten of this place
Oh how the words of ancients a prophecy have become
How the sins of the fathers have been passed on to the son
And when the sleeper had awakened
He saw the sin within his pride
And as their wisdom was forsaken
I reap the ruins of a lie
Oh did the winter heal them, or the Gods take their souls away?
Or did this anger deep inside me also turn their hearts to hate?
Or was death their fate ?
Where The Waters Run Clear:
Fatigue slows the child's quest to a crawl. Ragged thirst brings them to their knees. The realm of beauty and wonder they searched for would have to wait, just stopping for a rest... Delirious hope takes the child as they fall into the all-covering bed of ashes.
When the ocean is near, and we can see beyond our time
And the voice in the air will breath the sacred rhyme
Slowly shall we heal, and pain we'll leave behind
Again
When I cross the river wide and the sea is rolling blue
In the hours of the dawn and shadows of the moon
I will leave this place behind, and to my home I'll sail
Again
And one day we will fly to the edges of the earth
And in our hearts we'll see what holds the greatest worth
Forsaken and alone, there's no love that I feel here
But one day I'll be free where the waters run clear
Thine Will I Be Always:
At the moment of the last human child's final breath, its spirit hears a lullaby from its mother.
Upon the hill by light of moon
The trees stand tall among the stars
In valleys green with waters running clear
Of thee I'll think always
Into the stream will I wade
Through forests dark in the night air
Beyond the mountain hidden in the sky
For thee I search always
When woods are cold and wind is still
The plains are bright in the sunless day
When birds are lost, their song fades to the bleakened sky
With thee I am always
Now war has come and gone away
The fields of ashes sigh in vain
And although I know not where your soul doth lie
Thine will I be always
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
All music and lyrics by Troll Hart
released June 15, 2018
-Troll Hart: Acoustic Guitar, Piano, Lead & Backing vocals
-Mike Ewers: Fretless Bass Guitar
-Alexander Torres: Viola, Puerto Rican Cuatro
-Kai Movagh: Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Recorded April 14th & 15th of 2018 at Honey Jam Records in Chicago.
Mixed by Alexander Torres and Troll Hart at the Troll Cave.
Mastered by Christopher Cozzi at Hellbound Studios.
Cover art by Kai Movagh.

I am writing this to show you I am here for you.
To make plain what is behind my music
in terms of emotion and life experience.
To give honesty
and attempt to foster community!
I am honored to share this space and time with you!
Please feel free to leave a comment ~
Until next week,
~ Compassion ~
~ <3 Trolli <3 ~

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