“Having just completed her incredible 12-month, 12-EP series A Year of Lore, Laura Cannell has immediately launched into a new series. A Compendium of Beasts, described as “a Medieval Bestiary in Sound,” begins with a tribute to four different beasts…. The music is sublime, but the fun is the identification: which creatures are real, which are imaginary, and which have been classified as imaginary but may in fact be real?“
Review from ‘A Closer Listen’ 30th January 2025

A Compendium of Beasts – Volume 1 is a modern day Medieval Bestiary in sound. Composed, performed and produced by internationally acclaimed musician and composer Laura Cannell. 
It’s the first in a series of EPs created to search for strength and solidarity in the world of real and imagined beasts.

Cannell’s ‘Beasts’ series opens the door on a new chapter in which she is searching for meaning amidst chaos. She embraces her feral medieval and improvisatory roots through her instruments as she plays a game of catch and release to explore the minds of these mythical and real animals. Volume 1 features 4 tracks which include the mythical Norfolk puma and the bittern who booms across the marshes. 

For centuries people have looked to animals for answers and inspiration. Both animals and instruments communicate so much yet never speak, they are otherworldly, sharing with us the same air, the same space, but they are never truly of the same world as us.

This series follows on from her epic year in 2024 which included a monthly EP series ‘A Year of Lore’ and her high hitting 10th solo album ‘The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined’, as well as a duo release with Seattle based Cellist Lori Goldston, All of which garnered much attention from BBC Radio 3, 4 and 6Music among others.

“In A Compendium of Beasts – Volume 1, I have welcomed some of the animals I know best, The Bittern who booms across the marshes, The Bridd Hremm (or Crow Chick in Old English), The Norfolk Puma – who has been a presence in our family, never seen but in the corner of a field or an eye it could be there, there is field in particular that I believe it lives and The Fox Taegl – I have a deeply embedded memory from a very young age of a bushy tail disappearing into a hedge.”  

A Compendium of Beasts Volume 2 features 4 tracks

1. Phoenix Quartet
A violin quartet written for the legendary immortal bird that regenerates and lives over and over again symbolising good fortune and transformation.

2. Beneath the Tulpars Wings and Hooves
A supernaturally fast horse is represented here on overbowed violin, it is said that a boy was grieving his horse and the horse appeared to him in a dream and taught him how to make a fiddle from the bones and hairs of the horse, (a magical violin origin story).

3. The Otter Swims at Night
Nocturnal watery chords repeat in the track, with intertwining recorder resonating through the dark Waveney Valley waterways where otters were successfully reintroduced into the wild Wetlands of East Anglia.

4. Feathered Serpent
A biting rough fiddle sound accompanies the half flight of The Feathered Serpent. It is said to represent the space between the sky and the underworld. It has the features of both a bird and a snake with a plumed back.