Thoughts on Stone Woman

This started out with two different trains of thought.

Train #1: In the summer of 2013, Erik and I came up with the idea of doing a folk metal bellydance album. He had come up with several baselines that just needed to have music added around them. We demo'd out three songs in just a couple of weeks and then we got really busy with shows, other recording projects, and before we knew it we were deep in the process of recording the Antikythera Mechanism album. With each new album track reaching completion I could hear those three tracks crying out for attention. They were too good not to use and, realistically, that metal bellydance album had been pushed too far off into the future.

So I talked with Erik and we both agreed that we could put words to the tracks and incorporate them into the Antikythera Mechanism.

Train #2: At the beginning of my own brainstorming at the beginning of the album song-writing process I had a plaintive voice in my ear. I was imagining the voice of a young lady cursed beyond comprehension and wondering why. I'd imagined Medusa not as a harsh voice or a monster of vengeance but rather as a soft heart trapped in the cold monstrous shell.

I sent the words off to Alyssa and she took the idea and turned it on its head. This young woman wasn't the shrinking violet lamenting her fate. No. This young women was well aware of the injustice committed and was not about to go off quietly into the night. I got chills reading the words.

The collision: When I went back to the metal bellydance tunes I found the music for Stone Woman right away. The anger and aggression was right there. At first under a veil of quiet anger and then showing forth with clear intent. When Kate came into the studio and laid down her vocals I was flabbergasted. I had no idea that she could channel that kind of rage. It scared me just a little bit, actually.

Alyssa: The story of Medusa is a rough one.  Once a beautiful woman, she is raped by Poseidon.  Because this happened in one of Athena’s temples, Athena is enraged and (wrongly) punishes Medusa (instead of Poseidon) by transforming Medusa’s hair into snakes and her face into one so hideous that people would turn to stone by looking at it.  This would make anyone angry, to be punished for something terrible that happened to her and was not her fault.  I also pulled from the story of Medea and Jason, another tale of a woman thrown away, where her only crime was loving and trusting the wrong person.  No wonder there are stone hearted monsters, products of the lies and abuse they endured.