![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/glover5.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/morse2.jpg)
New Blackmore’s Night single released
As we told you last year there’s a new Blackmore’s Night release on the horizon — and you can hear the first single now.
From the press release:
RELEASE BRAND NEW SINGLE
“FOUR WINDS”
taken from their forthcoming studio album “Nature’s Light”
New York, NY (January 22, 2021)–Today, January 22nd, internationally renowned Renaissance folk rock band Blackmore’s Night release their new single “Four Winds”. It is the second song taken from their highly anticipated new studio album Nature’s Light, the first in six years, and eleventh studio album overall.
Blackmore’s Night have crafted a 20+ year legacy of merging medieval melodies with rock elements. Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Candice Night seamlessly blends her ethereal vocals and lyrics, along with a command of numerous classic woodwinds. With Ritchie Blackmore traversing all matter of six-string instruments, from acoustic and electric guitar to mandola, hurdy-gurdy and nyckelharpa and their wonderful band of minstrels, the result is a truly unique listening experience.
Their new single is another remarkable song and foretaste of their forthcoming album.
Says Candice Night,
“‘Four Winds’ is the story of two girls, actually inspired by two of my oldest friendships. One who left Long Island and moved to California and one who left to move to Virginia. Going to across the country to California and living on the water was where the first girl felt the call to her soul, being able to watch the dolphins in the water and living the life by the ocean, while the other one took a very different path and felt the call to the woods inspired by wolves and other woodland creatures. They both have equal importance in this storyline and are ultimately a part of me and perhaps of everyone, being pulled away from the stress of their current surroundings and looking for escape. If you feel stagnant or repressed in your surroundings, it’s important to take a break from the mundane and go where your heart leads you. It allows you to recharge and begin again with fresh and renewed energy. For some it is the ocean, for some the woods, for some feeling the sun on your face, others need to immerse in moonlight. Ultimately, we are all a part of the same story, the same picture and as the song says, “we’re all part of the trees and part of the seas and ready to start again…”
‘Four Winds’ is available for immediate Streaming and Download: https://blackmoresnight.lnk.to/FourWinds
The corresponding official lyric video will be released on Blackmore’s Night Official YouTube channel on January 29th, 2021.
Nature’s Light will become available on multiple formats and can be pre-ordered here:
https://blackmoresnight.lnk.to/NaturesLight
That to Carole Kane for the information
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Already downloaded the single a few days ago from YouTube… same old same old….
January 26th, 2021 at 12:04It’s gentle & sweet, just more of the same…
Yada, yada, yada. It’s okay.
Dolphins and wolves … I love it how Candice intrepidly tackles the most contested social issues in the USA …
https://youtu.be/MiZvjMaTz1k
But let’s be fair, this song is better than your usual BN fare, very Rainbow’ish in fact, you can imagine Dio singing great parts of the vocal melody in the same way and the central musical motif can easily be reimagined as a riff, the chord changes are very Blackmore too. It’s a tried and trusted recipe, but not banal.
Unfortunately no solo though. And the electronic-sounding percussion and drum tracks that are all over the place grate. It amazes me how Blackmore who has played with great drummers like Paice and Powell for so long can bear a sound like that.
January 26th, 2021 at 15:29Not bad at all. Good Ritchie indeed.
January 26th, 2021 at 23:12But I’m looking forward to the vinyl isues of the early Blackmore’s Night albums (they are amazing) and the live album Past Time With Good Company to be released on vinyl, later this year.
je n’achèterai pas ce dernier album alors que j’ai tous les autres, pour la bonne et simple raison que cette musique n’à plus l’originalité et la qualité du début!!! Ritchie devrait arrêter car il n’à plus l’inspiration et ne peut plus jouer!! triste à dire mais c’est la réalité …
January 27th, 2021 at 16:36Does anyone pay for this music?
January 28th, 2021 at 10:15Adel @5: Yes, Ritchie does! Depending on the marital arrangements, Candice possibly too.
January 28th, 2021 at 16:04Uwe @6
January 30th, 2021 at 11:50Great answer plus the rest of the band members who has to buy their own copies to boost up the sales to double digits! 😂
If you like BN, you might want to check out Richard Thompson and Philip Picket, The Bones of All Men. With the rhythm section of Fairport, they re-interpret old music on new instruments. I have to say, I think it is vastly better than BN – see if you agree!
January 30th, 2021 at 13:52Putting Richard Thompson/Fairport Convention in one basket with BN is like saying Sweet were a lot like Deep Purple (for the avoidance of doubt: I dug Sweet, but DP they weren’t).
: – )
Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, Fotheringay, Magna Charta, Renaissance, Clannad, Runrig – all these great Brit folk (influence) rockers are in a different league to BN which is – and intends to be – a Disneyland version of folk. Ritchie, in his quest for commercial recognition, has taken out all edges and demands nothing from his listeners.
January 30th, 2021 at 19:48Yes, Uwe, you are absolutely right. I was trying to be polite! But I think of BN more as pseudo ‘old’ music, hence the Bones comparison. Sweet? Disneyland? Yes, valid comments, I’m afraid.
January 31st, 2021 at 17:03Uwe #2 – Does EVERY new song have to “tackle the most contested social issues in the USA”? Give us a break! That’s what Jefferson Starship (or what’s left of them) is for… But your comments in #6 and #9 are right on
January 31st, 2021 at 18:41!
even by Balckmore’s night standarts is crap! Dear God please Ritchie hang it up.
February 1st, 2021 at 22:33Reverend: Of course you’re right, not every band needs to be woke. With BN, the fairy tales, unicorns and maidens in distress in castles sometimes grate. I have nothing against dolphins (though I prefer sharks visually – if there is 10 cm thick aquarium glass between us that is!) or wolves (they are returning to Germany), long may Candice sing about them in moonlit nights and have her hubby strum along in imbibed merriment for all.
No where is my Robin Hood outfit … – Gillan sure was prophetic with that one.
February 2nd, 2021 at 02:16My friends, give Ritchie a break. He is acting in a true minstrel fashion. Minstrels had no idea of the artistic statement or stuff like that. Your typical English minstrel / German minnesinger / French trouver / Provencal troubadour would not play advanced songs to advanced audiences. He would travel from a castle to a town on the horseback with his lute and play whatever people would pay for, which is exactly what Ritchie does these days.
February 2nd, 2021 at 10:07I’m currently listening to Pentangle’s Finale live album from their 2008 farewell tour. That music is so intricate, subtle, yet heartfelt and lovingly done – it’s in another dimension to what BN do.
And if Ritchie played in a setting of similar refined beauty und taste (and what wonders his playing could work there!), I swear I’d be wearing “front-row garb & tights” at every future BN gig … and of course yell “Hey!” whenever Mrs. Blackmore requires me to.
I wish there was a bit more Jeff Beck in him. It’s perfectly ok to not ever play a note of DP or Rainbow again, but do something with your talent, challenge yourself!
February 3rd, 2021 at 16:20Another sleeping pill for the night..
March 21st, 2021 at 12:28