NANS!

ARCHIVE RECORD: NANS! // DISC ONE // CLASSIC

The first disc of NANS! treats piskie music not as a collection of human songs about supernatural beings, but as a surviving folk tradition belonging to the piskies themselves.

Its subjects are therefore pleasantly ordinary. There are songs for work, travelling, collecting dew, brewing for a feast, settling children to sleep, preparing for bad weather, and eventually finding the way home before morning.

The arrangements are intentionally varied, but the underlying fiction remains the same: these are old songs which have survived long enough to be recorded properly.

FIELD NOTES:

Dons Meyn: An opening dance from the older piskie repertoire. The album begins communally: rhythm, movement and the sound of a tradition already under way.

Piss-keez Vee-an: A lighter traditional piskie song, bright in character and rooted in the smaller pleasures of piskie life.

The Cornish Reel: An instrumental interlude. No explanation is required; sometimes the musicians simply play.

Dons Wahr-Barth: A darker communal piece whose processional pulse suggests an older nocturnal tradition beneath the dance.

Pyskies y'n Vownder: Piskies in the lane: moonlight, laughter, disappearing cream, and the familiar problem of discovering that somebody very small has been active while everyone else was asleep.

Kuntel an Gluth: An early-morning work song for gathering dew from grass, fern, gorse and spiderwebs before the warmth of sunrise takes it away.

Messach Dres an Nos: A travelling song for the messengers who carry parcels, news and gossip through gates, woods, lanes and hedges after dark.

Hungan an Pyskies: A quiet domestic lullaby sung to young piskies beneath roots and stones while the nocturnal world continues outside.

Braga rag an Gool: A brewing work song: water, honey, berries, herbs, communal labour, and an apparently rigorous programme of repeated quality-control testing.

Hager-Awel: A storm song. Doors are secured, lamps brought in, stores checked, and everyone accounted for while Cornish weather behaves exactly as expected.

Dhe-dre Kyns an Myttin: The traditional closing song. One more dance, one more song, one more laugh — then the piskies leave the night behind and go home before morning.

OLD SONGS. NEW RECORDINGS. SAME PISKIES.

Disc One is the quieter half of NANS!. Not necessarily quiet in volume, and certainly not always well behaved, but grounded in the things communities have always sung about: work, weather, journeys, food, children, celebration and home.

The other disc is rather less responsible.

// END OF DISC ONE
DHE-DRE KYNS AN MYTTIN
Homewards before morning.