Folklore & Fiction Ballads, Moorcock Space Rock & Tolkien Black Metal
Plus The Art of Jeff Easley
To inspire your tabletop roleplaying this week, I offer you Child Ballads in the English and Scottish tradition, Michael Moorcock-inspired space rock, and/or J.R.R. Tolkien-influenced black metal. Roll 1d3 or enjoy them all!
The Folklore & Fiction Ballads
Last week, C.S. MacCath released an EP called The Folklore & Fiction Ballads that already has its hooks in me. She is a Doctor of Folklore, and her “approach to musical storytelling is rooted in Western and Northern European Paganisms, which are her spiritual touchstones.”
She provides sparse musical accompaniment via simple percussion and the drone of a shruti box. This provides plenty of room for her character-oriented vocals, whose melodies contain surprising pitches that draw my ear to the lyrics.
You can listen to The Folklore & Fiction Ballads here:
Moorcock Space Rock
As I’m always on the lookout for more music inspired by Michael Moorcock, the following post in my Bluesky feed from the band Outstation caught my eye:
The song “The Rituals of Infinity” is from the band’s 2021 album Malevolent Energy. It shares a title with a Michael Moorcock novel, and it’s a cool space rock track in the Hawkwind tradition.
Listen to the full song here:
Tolkien Black Metal
Synth-based black metal artist Morningstvr has released a video for his latest single, the J.R.R. Tolkien-inspired “The Last of the Northern Kingdoms.” Morningstvr explained the song in a Metal-Rules article as follows:
“The Last of the Northern Kingdoms: is the lead song on this album, it gives reference to one of Tolkien’s works thus telling the story of my origins. This one stood out to me as the lead song because of its epic changes in the song, the emotion it gives along with how heavy it became as I finished writing it.”
Check out the video here:
The song will be included on Morningstvr’s upcoming album A Fate Engraved, which is scheduled to be released on the 20th of June, 2025. You can purchase the “The Last of the Northern Kingdoms” single now from the Morningstvr Bandcamp page.
The Art of Jeff Easley
A few weeks ago, I discussed a Dragon guitar from Paul Reed Smith that featured artwork by famed TSR artist Jeff Easley:
Now, Jeff has a crowdfunding campaign for an art book called The Art of Jeff Easley.
Here is a description from the campaign page.
My name is Jeff Easley, and I'm a painter. Even if you don't know my name, if you are a fan of Dungeons & Dragons, you're probably familiar with my artwork. For over two decades, I was an artist for TSR and Wizards of the Coast, and my art has been seen on the covers of many of their most iconic products of the 1980s and 90s.
Now, at long last, I am compiling many of my favorite pieces into the first career retrospective of my work.
It is my pleasure to announce The Art of Jeff Easley.
To purchase, pledge your support here.