In Gowan Ring

The Symbolist Folk Music of In Gowan Ring channels stories of stones and angels through homemade instruments and human voice. Uncanny harmonies unearth a visionary sonic tapestry, engaging in mythic landscapes to weave the transcendental and the mundane.

For the last 20 years B’ee has composed original acoustic music under the moniker ‘In Gowan Ring’. It has lead him on an itinerant journey through peculiar landscapes of sound and sense; meeting with other musicians, traditions, and philosophies around the world while pursuing his own unexampled, intimate Art.

With a revolving cast of compatriots and fellow travelers, In Gowan Ring have over a dozen albums of recorded work, and have performed in over 30 countries worldwide.

"Music has always been for me a line of enquiry into a web-like world of subtle perceptions that reach through the metaphysical background of life. It is both a window onto the imaginal realm of primeval myth and an invitation to track our own smoky parables that, however evanescent, are yet somehow essential to our humanness and to our habitation of this material world. These inner landscapes where we experience love, awe, affinity and reverence branch deep through the heart of things, and we do well to heed the spirits there." -B'ee

THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE relates an alchemical journey through a luminous garden round the Living Tree; there is a serpent… and there is a dove. A candle’s flame flickers in the night, lighting the face of a wandering sage settled by a stream. He sings a story he’d heard whispered through the reeds; about a cosmic dancer: her rainbow eyes, her bowl of tea, and a field of dreams out of which the universe grew, and all that we can see… There are willows; there are masks of leaves; there are thousands of bees.

More about B’ee, In Gowan Ring and Symbolist Folk Music:

"In my 10 year hiatus from releasing albums for In Gowan Ring I have yet been in pursuit of the ineffable!:
Collecting several dozens of songs; tending to studies of obscure fascination; refining both attunement to my muse and the aesthetic approach I take to musical arrangement; building instruments on which to play; bearing the brunt of life-lessons on a wayward path; managing at last somewhat to ‘settle down’ and get back to this work.
Now, I have a sense of larger cycles coming ‘round in their season, and my own readiness to walk along with them."

Symbolist Folk Music is music within a magico-poetic-folk tradition; utilizing acoustic instruments, voice, and poetry to convey transcendent experience and to engage the listener in mythic realities. In recent history this musical engagement has also been called “Psychedelic”, “Acid”, or “Wyrd” Folk.

Currently In Gowan Ring use arrangements for guitar, harp, psaltery, flute, percussion, harmonica, string drones, Nyckelharpa, hurdy gurdy as well as multiple vocal harmonies in counterpoint. Most instruments are handcrafted by B’ee himself.

Besides classic psychedelic folk influences (Incredible String Band, Pentangle, Nick Drake et al.) In Gowan Ring naturally blend elements of Early Music (medieval & renaissance), Troubadour & Minnesinger song forms, mystic poetry (e.g. Hafiz, Rumi, W.B.Yates), and Spiritual Minimalist Music.

In Gowan Ring have performed in over 30 countries worldwide; playing at folk, experimental and spiritual festivals, on tour and in support for groups such as Faun, Woven Hand, and Robin Williamson.

“Psychedelic folk album of the year, no question.”

— Ptolemaic Terrascope

“An album of rare power, a true treasure. ”

— The Active Listener

“A masterpiece set in stone.”

— Heathen Harvest

“Songs of timeless beauty. The perfect soundtrack for autumn nights.”

— Oliver s. Tyr (Faun)