Album 7 - Roseanna Angel Lawrence

This album is based on a fictional story I wrote about a young Victorian girl who believes she is hearing voices from spirits, however, she may also have a mental illness that is causing hallucinations. As always, I compose around a character, once I've written the story and got to know the character I can compose, the compositions flow at this stage. When you write fiction you have to pretend the character is sat next to you, it's the same in music.

This album is part classical orchestral, these compositions are on sheet music, the rest of the tracks are electronic synthesiser compositions with some strings. There is a great difference in the sounds of the tracks, some are very unstructured and others are composed with more attention to structure. It's important to me that I have times when I feel free in composing. Unlike the album Cipher Criminal, these orchestral compositions are slower and more simplistic. I think most of the fast orchestration compositions went on Cipher Criminal this year.

The character in my story keeps a diary of her communications with the spirits, called the Spirit Diaries that she hides. In the story, she meets many strange and interesting characters on her journey, some that are spirits long dead that talk to her, others are alive in the Victorian era. She meets an architect who believes that the design of buildings can affect the mind and attract certain personalities, she spends time with a mystic in the wastelands of the city, a priest, a medium and a philosopher and occultist. It's a wild journey.

The Victorian era was a historical time in the UK where mediums, ghost hunters and occultists were attempting to talk to spirits and ghost hunters were prevalent. It was a time of technological advances but there was also a huge interest in Spiritualism. Even Queen Victoria showed an interest in mediums and ghosts. She and Prince Albert visited seances. Scientifically it’s not surprising, many human beings died earlier at this time in history through disease. Becoming a female medium was one way in which some working-class women could elevate their social status and mingle in different social classes, so this was an incentive. However, one of the most famous mediums Florence Eliza Cook said she’d heard voices from childhood, she was very imaginative as a child, or she suffered with something that is unknown, however, she was clever enough to escape a life of drudgery.

I personally do not believe in spirits myself or the ability to talk to them. However, I am respectful of other people's beliefs. I wrote my story after a friend gave me a research paper about ghosts and how this belief in the supernatural could have been hard-wired into us through the generations because of how our ancestors lived in the past. Our ancestors would talk to spirits and they would advise people that the spirits had given them knowledge.

Violet has lost someone close to death and she so much wants to believe these voices.

Some of the people mentioned in this album.

John Dee (The Queen’s Conjurer) was a 16th Century occultist, he was known as the Queen’s conjurer, he was also a brilliant mathematician, alchemist, astronomer and occultist. However, he often conducted occult and angel investigations in secret and his famous ‘Spirit Mirror’ to see spirits, this is in the British Museum in London. He kept some of his books hidden from the world, in case he was killed. On one hand, Dee had a very scientific mind, on the other hand, he had was interested in very strange ideas and experiments. He had one of the largest collections of books in Elizabethan London.

Giordano Bruno was a philosopher, mathematician and occult writer. He was born in 1600 in Rome. Tragically he was burned alive by the Roman Inquisition for his heretic thinking in Italy at a very young age. Some people believe his belief in Exoplanets may have also caused a problem for him. Bruno said the earth had no center, that the stars were suns surrounded by planets and moons. I have his books on my bookshelf. He had a wild heart and incredible intelligence. Imagine understanding the universe the way he did at that time in history. It’s a great tragedy what happened to him at a young age, but his work lives on. In another time, he would have been able to think freely.

Florence Eliza Cook born in 1856 made claims that she could materialise many famous spirits, she was visited by people from all social classes. She was investigated by Sir William Crookes physicist. From age fourteen she’d play rapping games with other children, later in London, she would be visited by professional middle-class members of society who believed in her completely. However, some were less impressed calling her a fraud. One can say that this ability enabled cook a different type of life to other girls of her social ranking. She also had a very vivid imagination. However, Sir William Crookes was angry at what he called her fraudulent behaviour and ruined her reputation.

Nicholas Hawksmoor was an architect who designed in the baroque style, he was most famous for his ‘churches.’ He was born in 1662. His architectural designs were very recognisable and unique, he was a fascinating person with a brilliant mind. Many myths grew about him over the long years, most likely as many facts about him remained unknown. He remains an architect that attracts the imagination and occult writings, including the famous book by Peter Ackroyd.