Band: Illudium
Song: “Sempervirens”
Album: Ash of the Womb
Release Date: October 15th, 2021
Label: Prophecy Productions
Frontwoman Shantel Amundson states:
“The song ‘Sempervirens’ represents the salient connection between human and non-human worlds. It was written during the devastating wildfires that California has endured these last couple of years, and is an attempt at transmuting some feelings of horror and sadness into ideas of reverence and refuge, which these coastal giants (sequoia sempervirens) embody so well. Ash and light fell from the sky, and amidst all this fear and heartbreak, there was a gleaming newness in the emergence of life all around. Growing up in the Redwoods, these forests were always a haven, ever verdant and brimming with sentient beings. We are not removed from our environment, as we are so defined as humans. Nor is nature rendered mute and revoked of agency, as many systems have led us to believe. It is through our actions with other-than humans and one another that we are woven into continuity, regenerating the world and all of its inter-relationships. This song seeks to imagine a different sort of flourishing in this world beyond the human in which we live, and is a harbinger of hope during these apocalyptic times.”
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