This study aims at establishing theoretical and analytical dialogues between intermedial studies and adaptation studies in the analysis of the conceptual album Shadow of the Raven (2007), by the American band, Nox Arcana, which is a reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s literary text. Their cloaks were known as tugan, and were usually made from the feathers of birds. The poets who would have worn the cloaks were thought of as singers, who, like songbirds, had the power to lull their audiences into a dream-like state. The two of them carried on in this call and response, conversational birdsong, 1 The phrase " the feathered cloaks of poets " is from Celtic folklore. John shuffled over to the chair and sat (although I prefer to think of it as perched), looked closely at Jack, and emphatically called out another birdsong reminiscent of a query. John entered further into the room and sang out another call, and Jack responded yet again. Jack responded, and what happened after that mesmerised me. John looked back and forth between us, and then called out another birdcall. Another resident, " John ", was standing there. We'd been doing this back and forth for a while, when suddenly from the doorway someone else answered his call. Once we were sufficiently lubricated, Jack began to go through his notes and demonstrate the various calls of different birds, and asked me to " call " them back to him. His uncle maintained that it was indicative of the " end of times " that they were disappearing. ![]() He said that there were so many of them that they all considered it unimaginable that they could vanish from the earth. He said that his uncle would tell him stories about there being so many passenger pigeons that when the flocks would take to the air, it would look like advancing thunderclouds, and sound as loud as thunder overhead. He told me about going birding with his uncle when he was small, and showed me a drawing he did of a passenger pigeon when he was 5 or 6 years old. I showed up on the appointed day, armed with the Jura, and we sat in Jack's room and sipped and reminisced. In exchange, we would look through his notes, talk about his lifelong birding adventures, and maybe give some bird calls a whirl while having a wee dram. ![]() By mutual arrangement I was to arrive with a bottle of Jura single malt in hand. I tracked down a centenarian who now lived in a seniors' residence-let's call him Jack-and arranged to go and visit him. Better yet, they might have their own notes about the songs, and might even know how to do the calls. ![]() When we were looking at dates of last sightings of these birds, it occurred to me that there might still be people alive who were birdwatchers who had actually heard them. I was working with some people from the Royal Ontario Museum (known as the ROM), and we discussed looking further to see if I could find any extant recordings of some of these birds. I drew sketches and made some recordings of me doing some of the birdsongs, but I found it ultimately unsatisfying. I thought of recreating and recording the different birdsongs myself, and combining that with another track of ambient sounds from where you'd normally find those kinds of birds: fields, forests, shorelines. When I had begun to think about birdsong a few years ago, specifically that of extinct and threatened birds, I had wondered about how I could communicate their songs.
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