Two new reviews for The Furies Prayer

On Collected Sound, a site "celebrating independent musicians"

a Review by Anna Maria Stjarnell:

Aepril Schaile scares me. The intensity on her and her bands debut album is frightening and persuasive. She makes a lot of noise at her piano and reminds me of Diamanda Galas...Schaile's singing is gorgeous and the addition of a violin makes it even better...
read more: www.collectedsounds.com/cdrevi...er.html

And, on the Maine Musicians Exchange:

review by Wendy Deschenes/Tea Gerumburg:

"The Furies Prayer" is not a 'main stream' release, and doesn't contain poppy lyrics and the music is not your typical fare. It is, however, a work of great musical genius with mesmerizingly dark tones, and haunting vocals....All the music was written and arranged by the very gifted and talented Aepril Schaile. In my opinion she definitely has what it takes to go into theatrical production. You can truly envision seeing these songs transformed into a ceremoniously dark drama...

read more: www.mainemusiciansexchange.org/mm...php

Aepril Schaile and the Judgement says thank you! to all three writers for these reviews!

The Furies' Prayer is availble here: www.aeprilschaile.com/thejudg...tore.htm

What's in a name?...Exquisite Corpse

www.aeprilschaile.com/exquisitecorpse

"The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine."

I wasn't sure what I would name this project, if anything, when I was first coming up with the idea for it. I knew that I wanted something that embodied the sacred darkness, collective feminine power, the mysteries of the psyche and underworld. The project was to be experimental--something that had everyone contributing a segment of choreography to a pre-decided piece of music, creating seperately with the intent to bring it together later to form a larger body of dance. Who knew what the outcome would be? Maybe to name it at all would cause it to be defined too much.

When, in my invitation to particpate in the project, I described my ideas to choreographer/dancer Jessica Jane Means, she pointed out that the structure of which I'd conceived resembled the dadaist/surrealist art technique of the "exquisite corpse". Despite my art school credentials, I hadn't thought of it that way! Given that the project was to be created in contributed "parts", and given that the project's direction is toward the dark, the unknown, the cyclical, the gothic and the experimental, I thought that Exquisite Corpse would make a perfect name for this collaboration.

Exquisite Corpse can be loosely translated to mean "beautiful body", and it is a beautiful body of dance that we aspire to create. Aepril

Below is an edited quote about the history of exquiste corpse from Wikipedia. Find out more here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse

"Exquisite corpse (also known as "exquisite cadaver" or "rotating corpse") is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis in French. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.

The technique was invented by Surrealists in 1925, and is similar to an old parlour game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Later, the game was adapted to drawing and collage. The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when Surrealists first played the game, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." ("The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.")

Some have played the graphic game with a more or less vague or general prior agreement about what the resulting picture will be (though such application of reason makes the exercise not strictly a surrealist one).

The game of exquisite corpse has been adapted to be played using computer graphics, the construction of Surrealist objects, and even an adaptation to architecture has been proposed. The technique has also been used in making at least one Doom level and at NYU in making films . In music, the composers Virgil Thomson, John Cage, and Lou Harrison (among others) collaborated on Exquisite Corpse pieces, where each composer would only be privy to one measure of music. "Totems Without Taboos," organized by the Chicago Surrealist Group at the Heartland Cafe in Chicago, was the first exhibition of exquisite corpses in the United States.The San Francisco Cacophony Society performed the exquisite corpse game using a theater full of people with banks of typewriters. Mysterious Object at Noon, an experimental 2000 Thai feature film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul was inspired by the exquisite corpse game. The stage production Hedwig and the Angry Inch and its film adaptation heavily utilize the exquisite corpse format as a symbol. A more recent film, The Orange Thief, was made using the exquisite corpse technique. "

And now we have Exqusite Corpse Bellydance.
www.aeprilschaile.com/exquisitecorpse

Introducing: the Exquisite Corpse Bellydance Project!

Introducing: the Exquisite Corpse Bellydance Project!

Exquisite Corpse is a "gothique/experimental" collaboration of Bellydancers--troupe members and soloists from northern New England---working together to create a shadowy, evanescent and beautiful body of dance...

Drawing from the collective unconscious of the group, each pair or group adds their own segment of choreography to the larger dance piece. An "exquisite corpse" is formed, its final outcome being greater than the sum of its parts...

Unlike a traditional "troupe", Exquisite Corpse is a temporary collaboration. In a cycle yet to be revealed, Exquisite Corpse is to be (re-) incarnated, performed by souls old and new, and dissolved again until its next lifetime, corresponding with a change of season.

"She is not evil, although She is dark. By bringing death, She causes new life..."


Choreographers/performers for the current incarnation:

Aepril Schaile (aeprilschaile.com)

Karina Khan, and Dima of Lotus Moon

Aonochi and Zanjibal of Paradigm/P3

Jessica Jane Means and Cory Bucknam of Naya's Trance


The first performance of the piece is:
Fri, Feb 16th
at the My Gothic Valentine Ball, hosted by USM Pagans
at the Woodbury Campus Center of the University of Southern Maine, Portland
9pm
table to benefit Family Crisis

The My Valentine Gothic Ball is in conjunction with Vulvapalooza, a week long series of events, the proceeds of which go toward projects combating violence against women.

Please visit the websites for more!:

www.myspace.com/exquisitec...ebellydance

and also www.aeprilschaile.com/exquisitecorpse.htm

New review by "global authority on Goth" Mick Mercer

"Global authority on Goth music", Mick Mercer, writes about The Furies' Prayer on mickmercer.com:

mickmercer.livejournal.com/634845.html

"AEPRIL SCHAILE AND THE JUDGEMENT
THE FURIES’ PRAYER
Own Label

Don’t be scared, little ones. Prepare to be stunned by the exceptional music on this album, also awed by the shock. Imagine a classical solemnity falling over emotional settings that unnerve, but nary a bludgeoning riff is employed to convey force, or any oscillating synth wobbling in the background generating heat. It’s just Aepril on piano, Michael on drums and a few people on occasional strings. Organic, unsettling, and grandiose to a point, such hugeness, from such simple ingredients, is reassuringly human, yet daunting. She unburdens herself like a suitcases let loose in space, singing from inside the gnarled roots of the tree of passion. She goes berserk, quaintly. You’ll be impressed and ever so slightly nervous.

‘You Murder Me’ is an urgent whirlpool of deep anger, the piano echoing and booming, then trickling mildly through your startled mind. Somewhere between the drama of Diamanda Galas and a modern version of what Patti Smith might have conjured, there’s an upfront brevity here which is rarely found on records. It’s like you’re trapped in a very small room with them. Wild, unwelcoming vocals come in small waves, or as a scary wind: Aepril, the one-woman storm! ‘Disolutio’ is even more haunting with its own rumbling ambience, and if you ever liked Danielle Dax’s ‘Jesus Egg That Wept’ say hello to its harrowing niece. For all its harsh atmosphere this is also spectacularly pretty, meaning you can learn to love the sound, not merely select it when the correct mood arrives.

‘This Place To Die’ shares the stumbling, still and piercing mood of Johnny Cash’s take on ‘Hurt’, with the same thundering, natural tones and distraught strings and what’s weird is the aggressive and ugly vocals towards the end follow a trail which reminds me of early New Order, again underlining the way melody can work in ungracious terms. There’s also the undeniable fact that when the song finally ends you can finally relax.

More a murderous fairground waltz, ‘Mirror/Spirits’ has a lighter bumpiness, the drums instilling a certain jollity, but gradually a worrying character emerges and you feel cornered once more by some batty old dame, ranting at the ether. It’s genuinely weird, and utterly compelling as it moves towards a quite demented finish. ‘Flight From The Murder Tree’ introduces the cello, droning sensitively like whale song in a library reference section, but Aepril isn’t letting us off that easy. When it fades away she steps into the room, talons bared and grows heated and choking in the desolate, morbid tune until she reminds me of a storyteller getting far too involved, ending up sniping off all the little childrens’ heads with her trusty, rusty garden shears. Teacher, leave those ~ snip, snip, snip: all gone! Steeped in old traditions, with rolling piano, this is the kind of thing Nick Cave would love to be able to do, only to fall stupidly at the first hurdle. You can imagine him with his shins impaled on the picket fence he has clattered, while a parasol carrying Aepril steps over his rank, snarling shape.

‘Lay Us Down’ flits around despite seeming constipated and doomed, and a grim ‘Where Does The Devil Go’ emphasises how this open sound makes misery majestic. Stirring, jarring and strangling all resistance before it, then relenting with a gentle, all but frail close. Stuffed with disturbing imagery ‘Mary Lucifer’ is macabre, like a barbaric nursery rhyme out of control, entering a weirdly argumentative phase then ending a shrieking firmament. ‘The Furies’ Prayer’ is stony and close to PJ Harvey because with drumming aplenty the music comes to dominate, unusually and then you are pulled into ‘Alive Another Day’ with its watery recriminations and painful, howling delivery like a fiery sermon, but praying for it to end.

This is worth the effort, and exhausting!"

Buy the Cd now here: www.aeprilschaile.com/thejudg...tore.com

www.aeprilschaile.com/
www.myspace.com/aeprilschaile

Live recording

I am happy to say that both Aepril Schaile and the Judgement CD release shows went very well! Phew!

I am honored to be working with such awesome musicians as I have in my band; the line up of Adam Trull on trumpet, Peri Bracy on bass along with Michael Mazzenga drumming and me playing piano seems to work well. We have yet to get good pics of the band as a whole--(every live pic with all of us has one of us with some weird facial expression or something! lol!) so I've posted a pic of me (with a blue tint, oh, and a weird facial expression;)

Our friend Futurist Tarquinius recorded our live show, so I've posted an edited version of the song www.aeprilschaile.com/Untitled-6.htm

We just revamped the website (music and bellydance!!) and I'd love for you to visit. Oh, and if i haven't said it enough, the CD is available for sale online, and soon it will be available at Bull Moose in the Portland and Boston areas of the world.

www.aeprilschaile.com/thejudg...tore.htm

dark moon to new moon...update

My fall round of classes ended, I am getting new classes in gothic bellydance set up for January. I appreciate all the interest and emails--you people all move quicker than I do! ;) Very exciting!
Right now I am deciding whether to do one mixed level class or two classes--beginning and intermediate. (I am open to suggestions!) I will post as soon as I have dates and location confirmed.
I am also responding to requests for workshops by working with other dancers and troupes in New England to det up dates and times. (Contact me here of you want me to come to you, too!)

As far as my troupe: I am putting Medusa Maidens to rest, at least for now. I appreciate the inquiries about auditioning (thank you!!!), but Medusa hath decreed that this project's concept and purpose may have run its course (...severed snakes falling to the ground, hissing into a pool of water and smoke...aaahhh Medusa, we thank Thee for Thy beauty and power...poison be gone...grace remain...) Thanks again to all you wicked souls who hooted and hissed your enthusiastic support!

As always, I continue to perform my more darkly-veiled style of bellydance, solo, and in collaboration with other dancers, so please visit www.aeprilschaile.com/bellydance.htm for performance dates starting again in January. Also look for a dark fusion bellydance project sometime early next year...but there's more...

....My VERY immediate plans are to concentrate on my role as Sugar Plum Fairy (I'm a drunken diva! oh my...) and in the Russian and Spanish pieces, for Vivid Motion's outrageous and sexy 4th annual Nutcracker Burlesque (tix go on sale Nov 24 the day after Thankgiving. They sell out damn fast, so get yours quick! QUICK! 5 show dates: Dec 20-23rd; www.nutcrackerburlesque.com

And last, but hardly least--our CD!!! Aepril Schaile and the Judgement's gothic-classical-spiritual-doom-death-folk recording, The Furies' Prayer will be out by December 2nd! We..re having our CD release on that date at Geno's with local "death lounge" favorites The Horror, and the ethereal absinthe-induced nightmare music of Boston's Dreamchild. We've also got a date set for Skybar in MA on Dec 7th.
Listen to newly uploaded song clips www.myspace.com/aeprilschaile

Thanks again for all the feedback and interest!--A

Singing with Ocean...this Saturday...

Just for this show--I'll be singing with the slow heavy doom of OCEAN at Asylum this weekend!

www.oceanofdoom.com
www.myspace.com/ocean

November, 18 2006 at Maine Stoner/Doom Fest 2 @ Asylum
Not Available, Portland, Maine
Cost: $10 at door; $18 for two shows

2 day fest, starts of friday Nov. 17 featuring- Atomicbitchwax, Wooly Mammath, The Brought Low, Valkyrie, Conifer, We're All Gonna Die,1000 Knives of Fire, Eldemur Krimm , Ruler of the Raging Main, Ol' Scratch, Sea of Bones, Cortez, Hovel, Ogre,& RPG, Supersoul Challenger.

beautiful wolves and other creatures

Below is a letter I recieved from Defenders of Wildlife. Being the caretaker of a 12 year old wolf hybrid, I think that wolf adoption is a brilliant idea for helping keep wolves safe from further persecution---and for channeling that urge to buy stuff at holiday time into a positive place:

wildlifeadoption.defenders.org
Wildlife Defenders.org


The holidays are almost here.

And while you and I look forward to enjoying the warmth and good will of this joyful season, our wolves face deadly threats.

In Alaska, they are gunned down by airborne riflemen or chased to exhaustion and shot at point-blank range. Idaho's plan to kill three out of four wolves in an area of Clearwater National Forest was postponed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but threatens to re-emerge.

And Wyoming officials are seeking a court action that, if granted, would lead to death of more than half of the state's wolf population.

You can do something to help. This Holiday Season, please support our efforts to protect wolves and other wildlife -- Adopt a wolf today and give a truly meaningful gift to your loved ones and the wildlife we all love.

With each wildlife gift adoption, we will send you or your loved one a plush wolf toy and a certificate of adoption. And shipping is free!

And your tax-deductible adoption will provide crucial support to help us save imperiled wolves from aerial gunning and other threats. You can enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that your gift supports our on-the-ground work with ranchers, farmers, activists and policy makers to prevent needless wolf deaths and promote common-sense wildlife management.

That..s not all.. You can help save other animals, too. Tigers are facing extinction from continued habitat loss and illegal poaching. Polar bears and emperor penguins are threatened by global warming. And dolphins are in trouble as commercial fishing and offshore drilling continue to threaten them.

Help save our imperiled wildlife.. and give a truly meaningful gift to your loved ones. Visit the Wildlife Adoption Center now to adopt a tiger, emperor penguin, polar bear, dolphin or other animal and start making a difference.

And, if you order before November 23rd, we will even take 10% off your adoption fee as a sign of our thanks for your enthusiastic support of our work. To redeem your special discount, just enter discount code WEB10 at the time of your adoption.

This Holiday Season, please consider giving a truly meaningful gift to all the special folks on your holiday shopping list. With all the threats our wildlife faces, it..s never too early to give a gift that helps protect our wolves and other imperiled wildlife.

Best Regards,

Karin Kirchoff

Vice President of Membership<br>Defenders of Wildlife

P.S. Please make a wildlife gift adoption online now or call (800) 385-9712 to make your adoption by phone.

bellydancing for the dead...10/29

Aepril is bellydancing twice Sunday October 29th!

First with the lovely ladies of Naya's Trance, and other local bellydancers, at the Naya's Trance halloween bellydance party: HAFLIWEEN!
The Presumpscot Grange, Portland, ME, 2-5pm. For more info: www.nayastrance.com.
Proceeds from this event go to Company of Girls --so not only do you get to see the best of local bellydance, but you get do a good deed as well with your $5....

Then, Aepril bellydances at the Skybar in Somerville, MA: Mass Morgue!
www.skybar.us
With bands Lucretia's Daggers, Dreamchild, Ultraplush, Psylab, and more. You can buy your discouted tix in advance from Aepril for this event--I HAVE 3 LEFT! Send me an email here...



Ready to be spooked? Awed? Entertained? 3rd Annual
Halloween local band/art/performance event "Mass.
Morgue" is the finale for the "Three Nights of Halloween"
@ SkyBar

Mass. Morgue, Sunday, October 29, 2006
SkyBar, 518 Somerville Ave., Somerville, MA 02143
7:30pm-midnight
$10 adv. from performers/vendors/organizers;
$12 @ door night of show only.
www.skybar.us, 21+

Sunday, October 29, marks the culmination of the "Three Nights
of Halloween" for local dark rock promoters Lauri Murphy
(Lucretia X. Machina) and Anderson Mar with their third annual
"Mass. Morgue" --a night of industrial, synth, blood, trance, gore,
dark pop bands, art, and other performances.

This year's event promises to be a sold out show featuring some
of the best of Boston's creative dark side with bands like the
rabbit-hole fingering Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken
Toys; Ultra Plush oscillating between alternate realities and
massive rhythms; Dreamchild providing the soundtrack to your
dreams and nightmares; the "passionate" and "confessional"
Lucretia's Daggers; and--consisting of former members from
local cult favorite Amun Ra--psychedelic trance/drum & bass
phenomenon, Psylab.

Other performers include gothic belly dancer Aepril Schaile, macabre magician
Fish the Magish, and poet Delsin Mills. Featured vendors
include master psychic/tarot reader Harmony Dawn, Reason8
Fashions, and the "dreamy wet and liquid world" f painter Jason
Randolph Burrell. And what Halloween party would be complete
without a goth/industrial DJ (DJ Michael Brown)? With ManRay
still in hiatus, the SkyBar is the place to be this Halloween
weekend!