Haeligewielle by Petrels
Haeligewielle is the debut solo record of Oliver Barrett of Bleeding Heart Narrative. It is a swirling cataract of a record, a deluge of beautiful noise and crushing melody, which ebbs and flows beneath the surface. Utilizing bowed strings, bent electronics, found percussion and occasional vocals, the record unfolds over seven tracks and fifty minutes, from the portentous drone of the opening ‘After Francis Danby’ and shimmering ‘Silt’ through the work-song-like ‘Concrete’ and cascading rhythm of ‘Winchester Croydon Winchester’. Haeligewielle tells a forgotten story, buried underneath the stones and water.
"Petrels has provided us with what has to be the strongest solo debut from a musician so far in 2011. It’s as if Barrett has launched his solo career as Petrels by giving us his own Sisyphus narrative, and somehow it sounds dreadfully authentic – no small feat. Haeligewielle is an album so dense and immersive you sometimes feel as though you are drowning or being smothered, but that’s exactly the way it’s supposed to feel." (Brendan Moore, Fluid Radio)
"Haeligewielle (holy well, sacred spring) is an album of creation and destruction, holiness and human honor. Its characters and etimologies dance around each other like fish in a waterspout. The album is a masterpiece of narrative, a blackened ship with a broken mast that defies the storm and in so doing discovers its own dark destiny." (Richard Allen, The Silent Ballet (8.5/10))
"Haeligewielle is Oliver Barrett’s (also of Bleeding Heart Narrative) first solo album as Petrels. It is a song of water, a song of stone. These two elements form the album’s thematic core, entwined in the story of the central figure of William Walker, the Winchester diver; but they also inform the album’s sonic makeup – onrushing, buoyant, coursing and at times dense and abrasive. It’s a record that excavates, and extrapolates outwards from, a particular and resonant historical undertaking and in its jubilant expansiveness grants it mythic, numinous life." (Matt Poacher, The Liminal)
Tracklist
| 1. | After Francis Danby | 8:00 |
| 2. | Silt | 3:48 |
| 3. | Canute | 6:18 |
| 4. | The Statue Is Unveiled With The Face Of Another | 7:15 |
| 5. | Concrete | 7:13 |
| 6. | Winchester Croydon Winchester | 2:49 |
| 7. | William Walker Strengthens The Foundations | 15:00 |
