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Dan nan Ron 'song of the seal' sound clips (mp3)Selkies are the lithe and seductive seal like creatures of legend that shed their silky, soft seal skins to take human form. Whether they are souls of the drowned, or fallen angels, they possess magical powers and gentle lilting voices. Their strange, sorrowful music heard out at sea is known as 'Dan nan Ron', the song of the seals.The Hebridean folk song in 'Sliocha nan Ron' is an old lament sung by a seal woman as she watches her 'seal host' boiling fiercely on the sealers fire. She warns 'I am a gentle woman from another land. Woe betide the person who would strike me'. Harming a selkie is believed to bring bad luck and the creatures are known to take revenge for their murdered kin.Apart from guitar, all the sound sources in 'Dan nan Ron' are seal and human voice. Both air and hydrophone recordings are included, some recordings made and generously donated for my use by researchers, others were made by myself. Those recordings made by myself were only possible due to the support and assistance again of a number of researchers, aquarium staff and national parks and wildlife staff.At times the recordings are unaltered and obvious, at other times heavily processed using various digital technologies. Throughout the piece you will hear the morphing and mutations of the human voice and folk song with the sounds of the seals. You will hear the chords of the seal song imposed on the seal vocalisations as the many sounds are stretched, granulated and mixed together into a mystical, watery world. |
