August - Still Lost Bird Music (2011)

Imagine my surprise, running through some new releases way back when, and hearing Latin. Timor mortis conturbat me. The fear of death disturbs me.

Upon some research, this is a musical setting of William Dunbar’s Lament For The Makers from the early 1500s.

It’s always weird to me when a piece of poetry from centuries ago can still seem relevant, even though the language and spelling is barely legible.

The whole album is settings of old poems–some famous, some not, most from the 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a really remarkable album that I might never have heard if not for that one little bit of Latin that my nerd brain wondered about.

Tracks I Liked

The Stolen Child - a Mountain-Goats-esque take on William Butler Yeats.

August - The title track is a setting of a 19th century poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

A Garden By The Sea - a beautiful piece by William Morris, with some of the best playing on the record.

Luke Havergal - a poem of the Old, Weird America by Edwin Arlington Robinson