Album Notes

Spiral Dance is an Adelaide-based band with a musical focus on the concepts of magic, myth and legend. The band was formed as a project to explore some of the more mystical elements in life and has drawn its energy from the song-writing and vocal skills of Adrienne Piggott. Adrienne's haunting lyrics are supported by intoxicating guitar riffs, evocative fiddle and groovy accordion lines, underpinned with potent bass and dynamic percussion, all carefully arranged to blend acoustic folk-rock with lush Celtic harmony, creating an almost tangible musical aura that envelopes the audience.

This album ‘The Quickening’ features songs based on the cycle of the seasons. The continuous sequence of the sabbats – Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltane, Midsummer, Lughnasadha and Autumn Equinox – can be depicted as an eight-spoke wheel, where each spoke marks an important moment of solar progression and therefore change on Earth. The Celts recognised both days and years as beginning with the dark part such that the evening marked the beginning of a new day and likewise the winter season marked the year’s beginning. We wanted to maintain the Celtic tradition and start our song cycle with a song for Samhain, honouring the ancient origins of the Wheel of the Year that stand firmly in the northern hemisphere, despite following our Australian aspect where the sabbats are essentially reversed and therefore celebrated on opposite dates of the year to better reflect their seasonal meaning.

The spark of new life that reveals the coming of Spring and greets the festival of Imbolc seemed to us to be the most positive energy for our song cycle and should perhaps act as the title track for the album. That transfer of energy at the moment an entity becomes possessed with life is known as ‘The Quickening’.