We began this journey a long time ago, and many things have changed. This album took
the better part of 12 years to complete. Now, don’t envision us chained to our instruments
for 4,384 days. We did a lot in those 12 years. We toured for the last album, we got married,
bought a house and settled into domesticity. We worked on music now and then, but life
has this strange way of getting between you and the things you really ought to be doing.
We also had a very grand vision for this album. Maybe too grand. It was our original
intention to create the music in conjunction with a comic book. The comic would tell the
story in between the songs, and the songs would enhance the themes in the comic.
In the end, trying to find artists, production questions, and other concerns sidetracked us
until the point that we realized we had two choices: put the music out without the comic,
or put the music onto a shelf somewhere in our archives and never talk about it again. We
decided to put the comic on hold and release the music.
If it becomes possible in the future, we’ll release the comic with art to match. For now,
we’ve included the script in these liner notes for your reading pleasure. There are select
images included, mostly from the appropriate single covers, and the script refers to the
songs when they come into the story.
This project can be enjoyed one of several ways. Either you may listen to the music and
disregard this script, you may disregard the music and just read, or you may listen and read
together. Think of it as a follow-along book for grownups.
The story is really three stories. It takes place in three countries, three eras. The first story
is that of Orpheus and Eurydice, and it takes place in Ancient Greece. The second takes
place in Europe in the Victorian era, where John Orpheus, an Englishman, loses his wife
Elizabeth in childbirth. The final piece of the story takes place in modern-day America,
where John and Elizabeth’s great-granddaughter, Olivia, is coping with the loss of her
partner of 10 years, Alan.
Throughout all three stories we see repeating themes and motifs: death and grief, love and
longing, and the communion between the living and the dead, and between rationality and
superstition.
In Kutna Hora, an ossuary near Prague, generations of residents have assembled the bones
of their dead into decorations for the church. Though this practice may seem morbid to an
outsider, the people who began this practice saw it as a way to honor their dead.
During the last 12 years, we’ve had plenty of time to honor our own dead. Wa’s
aunt Connie died in 2004. In 2008, his mom, Nola Jean, got a third bout of cancer and
finally succumbed to it three days before Thanksgiving, 2009. In her grief, Nola’s sister
Louise suffered a stroke a few months later. Just when we thought she would recover, she
died as well. And in the summer of 2013, we got a call from Jess’s mom that her grandma
was dying, and if we wanted to see her before she passed away, we should get to Wyoming
as soon as possible.
We made a road trip to see my grandmother, and drove through Yellowstone Park.
Amidst the trees and buffalo, we talked about finally putting aside all our concerns and
releasing this album.
So we present this to you. A labor of love and loss, and of grief and gratefulness. We
thank those who helped us, and honor those who aren’t here to share it.
With love,
Wa Conner
Jessica Griffin Conner aka Raven Nightshado
Shadowcroft House
September 26th, 2014
Check it out at the following places.
Feel free to add any of the THE BONE ASYLUM songs to your YouTube videos. And be sure to review her at the any of the following sites!
Keep checking back here, as we have another special thing that will be released soon that you will want to accompany your copy of THE BONE ASYLUM!