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Mother Country – The Sign of Jonas
$10.00 – $15.00
An Apocalypse Folktale by Luke Hathaway and Benton Roark
Sparse in construction, timeless in imagery, arcane in meaning, mythological in characters and narrative, The Sign of Jonas is an apocalypse folk tale — a story of personal and cultural collapse, and regeneration. It is a song cycle lost and found: a musical manuscript orphaned by the cataclysms of the 21st century, and re-wakened to ritual life far in the future. The fragments of text speak of journeys, of death and rebirth, of decay and regrowth; the music is a ceremonialized cycle of part songs, responsorials, folk rounds, and incantations. Together, they are a folk-music-pageant-mystery-play performed by traveling musicians and their instruments: fiddle, dulcimer, banjo, guitar, percussion, contrabass, piano … voices.
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TRACK LIST
1. fishermanfisher
2. at the baptist’s cove
3. three
4. foxfire
5. no such thing
6. wild strawberries
7. go to the ocean
8. across the marsh
9. where the body is
10. jolicure
11. one night in the whale
12. polyethylene
13. at last they found
14. the sky is clear
15. heavy weather
CREDITS
Music by Benton Roark
Words by Luke Hathaway
Benton Roark – voice, acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, piano, percussion
Carole Bestvater – voice, violin, percussion
Kathleen Allan – voice, harp, percussion
Abra Whitney – voice, percussion
Sandy Morris – dobro, acoustic guitar
Tiber Reardon – upright bass, electric guitar, voice
Luke Hathaway – recitation
Louis McDonald – accordion, electric guitar, percussion
Produced by Benton Roark
Recorded on August 3rd, 2023 at St. Pat’s in Woody Point, NL
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Louis McDonald
