Track By Tracks: Victoria K - Kore (2022)

1. Raptum:

This track is from the very beginning of the story. Here Kore (Persephone) is in the garden picking narcissus flowers when the earth yawn and she is then swallowed, taken by Hades down to the underworld. This song is trying to encapsulate the feeling of despair and melancholy that Kore (Persephone) would have experienced, the theme of deception runs through the whole album, but this is shown as the first deceiving action in the tale when you see someone who is tricked by a person they trust.

2. Mothers Garden:

Persephone's mother Demeter, was the goddess of the harvest and would tend to the earth's garden, hence the song title ‘Mothers Garden’. A distraught and heartbroken Demeter wandered the earth looking for her daughter for nine days, holding torches and flames. This song highlights the desolate mournful nature of the mother losing their child. Demeter is the goddess of the harvest ties into climate themes of a dying earth, things like drought, starvation, and the slow neglect of our planet. Most importantly this song is symbolic of a woman’s bodily autonomy being withheld; with many forms of female oppression past and present.

3. The Child:

Here Demeter nurses the child Demophoōn on nectar and ambrosia, every night she dips the child in the eternal flame in hopes to turn him into an immortal god. This song further highlights the mother's grief and sorrow, as she tries to fill the void that lies within her with another, (Demophoōn). The song speaks on these themes of sorrow and immense loss, as well as trying to find something to fill that void of loss, evidently, this can not be done. The song touches on the idea of slowly slipping away into insanity and loss as one tries to search for meaning, purpose, or a way out of a dark lugubrious state.

4. Persephone:

This song is not about an explicit part of the story, it is about what is not said when Kore now known as Persephone is in Hades. Kore at this time changed her name to Persephone, Kore translating to daughter and Persephone translating to the bringer of destruction. Here she has now claimed her own identity, tying into the theme of a woman reclaiming her own body or reclaiming her own rights. This song does speak of the torment and pain that Persephone endured through her time in Hades and how she slowly slips into a state of madness, every day trying to find her way home to her mother, trying to find an escape from being trapped in darkness; however, it has a triumphant undertone in realizing that she has finally been able to somewhat reclaim what is hers, her body and identity, something that all people in our time can feel and relate to.

5. A Divine Revalation:

In this section of the story, Demeter has revealed her true form, of a divine Goddess to the people. Tying into the theme of female strength, this song highlights the life-giving female spirit, symbolic of perpetual life. Challenging social structures of the past and present, such as the patriarchy that surrounds society in an attempt to open people's minds to the divine feminine, a glorious force that can create life. The song dismisses all of the claims made against women over the years and takes a look at a new society, one of a matriarchy that is fueled by the strength that comes from suffering, a reclamation of their own bodies and identities as women. This song in its entirety is an ode to profound, divine feminine spirits.

6. Tower:

Demeter orders the people to build a tower/a temple in her and her daughter's name. The song questions this ideology, of beliefs and humanity's ‘need’ to follow a greater power. The temples are the same, but the Gods and icons have changed over hundreds of years. It uses philosophical standards and questions the reality of these higher powers, challenging our belief systems, and asking why we worship mortal things as well as divine entities. It begs the question ‘who are we, without something to follow?’; highlighting how humanity's motivation to create icons has never changed. Leading to societal hierarchies and structures, such as the common capitalist structure. Parts of the song are from the perspective of the working class, represented by those who built the temple. The world in which we live is built upon this class and these people are now being somewhat exploited and neglected. Again leading back into the power struggle and dynamic that comes with leaders and followers. We wanted this song to bring this idea to light and rethink the story from a different, understated perspective.

7. Basphēmea:

The deception of Hades towards Persephone, when he tricks her into eating the pomegranate seeds, which ultimately traps her in the underworld. This song asks the philosophical question of, what our reality is. How do we as a human race know we are not being deceived and that half the lie is sight, and the other half is our own, personal, driving, belief. The deception of hades can tie into the deception of man, how we don't know if we are being deceived or how, but that we may be. It is an attempt to question our own beliefs and what we know is true, to try and see things from a new perspective. Tying into the underlying theme of the deceiver and the deceived that resides in the ‘tale of Persephone’.

8. Pomegranate:

Pomegranate, overlaps with the previous track on the album ‘Blasphēmea’, where Persephone eats the six pomegranate seeds, each representing a single month; this, in turn, forces her to reside in Hades for six months of the year and go back to her mother for the other six. When she is in Hades the overworld is cold and dark due to her mother grieving, when she is with her mother the flowers bloom and the earth is warm and bright. This song talks about the intense false hope that people experience, a hallucination that some may never reach. It is about repairing what you sow and that all actions have consequences, bad karmic energy will follow you. This is Persephone's way out and she falls into temptation and now has to suffer the consequences, similar to the story of Adam and Eve, with a similar message with Eve falling into temptation, indulging in the apple, and eventually suffering the consequences of her temptation.

9. Afterlife:

This is the final part of the story where Persephone is brought home to Demeter and the earth is restored. When Persephone is with her mother the earth is bright and warm, when she resides down in Hades the earth is dark and cold, hence the seasons, alluding to the cyclical nature of birth, life, death, and restoration. Time is not linear the earth keeps turning and moving without stopping and the seasons keep changing in a clockwork-like pattern. Highlighting the ever-changing world we live in, and how it will keep rolling on without stopping no matter how hard we try to stop it.