Michael Patrick Brady

My review of the self-titled Fern Knight album ran today at PopMatters.

Fern Knight bears many of the same themes as Margaret Wienk’s previous work: the fairy-tale darkness of Seven Years of Severed Limbs, the wistful longing of Blithewold, and the folklore fantasy of Music for Witches and Alchemists. On those albums, however, she seemed to occupy a world of her own creation, a beautifully luminous storyland that gave organic life to her touching lyrics and musical imagery.

On Fern Knight, that’s where the action begins, but for the first time Wienk moves into the real world, with a trilogy of songs about actual places, natural landmarks that serve as kind of a portal between her fantasy and our reality.

The album closes with another trilogy, the “Magpie Suite,” which delves even deeper into reality, escaping the arboreal margins and their sequestered beauty for a full-on, doom-laden lament for the declining state of Earth’s environment. It’s not preachy; it’s far too abstract for that. It’s a dire funeral hymn of charred landscapes, laid to waste by indifference.

I’ve been a huge fan of Margaret’s work since I was lucky enough to review Fern Knight’s debut for Brainwashed, and my admiration only grows with each release. That she’d devote a song (“Synge’s Chair”) to the Aran Islands, only proves I’m squarely a member of her intended audience. My grandfather originated on Inishmore (not Inishmaan, where Synge’s Chair is located), and the islands hold a special significance to me.

Even with all the reality-based tracks, Wienk’s fantasy world is still extant, and the opening three tracks, “Bemused,” “Silver Fox,” and “Sundew” are wonderful reminders of that ongoing story.