Review Text
'...one of the most creative songwriters and storytellers in the Grand Valley'--Peter Frankland, Channel 11 News. Notes on this CD: This CD, 'Songs of the Dark,' by Susan Cypher/The Nightbird's starts with the song 'Imaging.' This first song of flight, transformation, and freedom; of 'chasing rainbows and catching fire in my hand,' begins what is a mythical, mystical, magical taste of the forbidden. Moonlight bathes every note of this CD and brings out the meaning of my stage name 'The Nightbird.' Although my music is always positive (meaning no screaming, name-calling, or swearing), it often sings with sensuality, sexual overtones, and the taste of flamenco-style guitar. Take the song 'Demon Lover,' for instance, about that lover you can never forget (not a demon in the ancient terms of the word) but a person whose taste and smell and touch haunts your memory even on your deathbed. This CD celebrates those things that make life real and sweet. 'Nighttime in my Garden' brings to life a moment of dreaming in the moonlight, as the trees sway with their silvered limbs in the moonlight and a genie of imagination and mist rises to carry the listener away in his/her arms. 'Darkly Waltzing' (a favorite of several fans) is, as suggested no lighthearted waltz, but a shadowdance on an eerily lit background whirling to a haunting melody. 'Sweet Revenge' on the other hand has a dark humor to it, as the dog (who really is a woman) recounts the tale of how she came to be transformed and how she is going to seek revenge for the wrongful transformation. 'The Torture Chamber,' is about a man who simply loves his job as he sings 'I am the headsman I make torture fun, fun for me if not for you til setting of the sun,' and 'Magpies' was based on a real-life death of a friend that asks us to look inside before condemning those different from ourselves. As you listen, these songs pull you into a fantasy world where magic is real. My signature song 'The Nightbird' sings of My own chains, as the music that is me seeks to express all the voices that haunt and cry to me to write about them. As the song says The Nightbird 'sings with the sound of my voice...' and is 'sweating, yearning, shaking, burning'... crying, crashing, spinning, and dying.' This music is as real and as magical as it gets in this world. In bardic tradition, I write my music. My songs reach back into the past, forward into the future, and deep into the heart and mind. By the way, (little plug). If you like this CD, please check out my other title on CD Baby. 'In the Moments Between Dreaming.' If this one is moonlight and darkness (the soft dreamy magic moonlight), the other is sunlight and shadow. They were written as a set, originally, meant to compliment and finish each other :)--by the way there's more below, if you wish. Thanks for dropping by! From here on in--this is about me!! I consider myself a modern-day renaissance musician. Growing up I loved the way the fairy tales wove themselves into my very heart and being, and as The Nightbird I seek to do the same. I first became aware of a type of musician called a bard--a person who wrote their own stories and music. When I first became a singer I called myself 'The Traveling Troubador' singing and telling stories to children and adults, but none of it was my own voice. Somewhere during this journey I found my own voice and started writing all my own stuff. I also moved from performing for children (although I never did aim completely at children) and started aiming at adults. As I researched what a bard was, I realized that this type of storyteller was someone who was trying to bring to life stories told to the adult audience and young teens. This was the person I saw myself becoming. I felt that we lost our way as a people. I heard the music we listened to and thought 'where is the mysticism, where is the poetry,' of music. Not for me the writing that to me was witless and often the same. I was highly influenced by my favorite
