Toadstool Shadow is a music & arts collective based in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Their all-0riginal music is elfcore: a mix of psychedelia, country, and pop. Their philosophy is: there's another realm. In other words, hidden in plain sight, all around us, there is another world.
Artistically, Toadstool Shadow is reviving the fairy tale opera, a near-extinct European musical theater genre from the 18th and 19th century. In the fairy tale opera, magical stories are told musically.
Currently, Toadstool Shadow is creating an original three-part fairy tale rock opera. It's the story of a young bunny learning strange truths about the odd world around him. The music is a mix of psychedelia, soft rock, and country.
In part one, the 12-song Rainbow Nights, seven-year old Bunny is caught in a rain storm. He gladly takes shelter under a large toadstool. As the rain stops, night falls. Bunny then makes his way home through the rainbow night, encountering a strange world of elves and faeries. Arriving home, amazed but exhausted, Bunny knows, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home. In 2019-2020. Toadstool Shadow performed Rainbow Nights twice with a live band, actors, and stage set. The Rainbow Nights album was released in July 2020. One of its songs "Astral Minutes" is currently in rotation on WYSO, the Dayton, Ohio NPR radio station.
In Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, Bunny, now 19-years-old, deliberately goes back under the toadstool and returns to the visionary landscape of his youth. As he never knew whether his childhood experiences were real, delusional, or dreams, he brings a video camera to record everything. Its 12 songs are a taxonomy of visionary phenomena with individual songs about mermaids, leprechauns, unicorns, robot elves, magic carpets, and faeries. Its songs are sung by a number of all-star guest artists, including Sam Salazar (Wheels, Speaking Suns), Rory Papania (Wheels, Speaking Suns), and Rob Heiliger, with special guest musicians including David Byrne (Speaking Suns) and William R. Crocker. Nine of the 12 songs from Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf have already been released on YouTube as music videos. A 45-minute movie of Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, and its soundtrack, are scheduled to be released in spring 2021.
As of December 2020, only four of Journey to Glass Mountain's 12 songs have been composed. Its story is a closely guarded secret.
Toadstool Shadow is C.W. Till (composer and director); Nightshade the Elven Queen (vocals); Larry Halpern (organ); Malcolm Oberon Till (Bunny); Eli Bowsman (videographer); Sayre Hudson (actor and technical advisor); Arielle Johnson (actor and graphic artist); Romy Farrar (actor, percussion); and a host of guest artists and actors from the Yellow Springs area.
Artistically, Toadstool Shadow is reviving the fairy tale opera, a near-extinct European musical theater genre from the 18th and 19th century. In the fairy tale opera, magical stories are told musically.
Currently, Toadstool Shadow is creating an original three-part fairy tale rock opera. It's the story of a young bunny learning strange truths about the odd world around him. The music is a mix of psychedelia, soft rock, and country.
In part one, the 12-song Rainbow Nights, seven-year old Bunny is caught in a rain storm. He gladly takes shelter under a large toadstool. As the rain stops, night falls. Bunny then makes his way home through the rainbow night, encountering a strange world of elves and faeries. Arriving home, amazed but exhausted, Bunny knows, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home. In 2019-2020. Toadstool Shadow performed Rainbow Nights twice with a live band, actors, and stage set. The Rainbow Nights album was released in July 2020. One of its songs "Astral Minutes" is currently in rotation on WYSO, the Dayton, Ohio NPR radio station.
In Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, Bunny, now 19-years-old, deliberately goes back under the toadstool and returns to the visionary landscape of his youth. As he never knew whether his childhood experiences were real, delusional, or dreams, he brings a video camera to record everything. Its 12 songs are a taxonomy of visionary phenomena with individual songs about mermaids, leprechauns, unicorns, robot elves, magic carpets, and faeries. Its songs are sung by a number of all-star guest artists, including Sam Salazar (Wheels, Speaking Suns), Rory Papania (Wheels, Speaking Suns), and Rob Heiliger, with special guest musicians including David Byrne (Speaking Suns) and William R. Crocker. Nine of the 12 songs from Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf have already been released on YouTube as music videos. A 45-minute movie of Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, and its soundtrack, are scheduled to be released in spring 2021.
As of December 2020, only four of Journey to Glass Mountain's 12 songs have been composed. Its story is a closely guarded secret.
Toadstool Shadow is C.W. Till (composer and director); Nightshade the Elven Queen (vocals); Larry Halpern (organ); Malcolm Oberon Till (Bunny); Eli Bowsman (videographer); Sayre Hudson (actor and technical advisor); Arielle Johnson (actor and graphic artist); Romy Farrar (actor, percussion); and a host of guest artists and actors from the Yellow Springs area.
