Bolan's next release, A Beard of Stars (1970) is subtitled "Some Lore from the Books of Agadinmar." This title frames the entire album as a reproduction of fragments from an ancient spiritual work, which is, in itself, Bolan's own invention. The "existence" of this fictional work, then, sets up an entirely Bolan-created fantasy world. The inner sleeve of the record features a photograph of Bolan's own statuette of the Greek god Pan and is dedicated to "the Priests of Peace, all the Shepherds and Horse Lords and my Imperial Lore Liege - the King of the Rumbling Spires." Throughout, the album features references to the sun and moon, the woodlands, the earth, mountains, sea, wind, stars, and sky and includes Bolan's own mythical creation, the "Dworn" (a fighting machine mentioned in the song "Dragon's Ear"). The Dworn, the sleeve notes explain, is a "machinery of war, a bronze frame with wheels of white ivory and horns of a gazelle for steering, so sayeth Agadinmar," Bolan's own fantasy invention in a narrative of good versus evil, which is, as [Frederic] Jameson notes, a trope of the fantasy genre that reflects (in a particularly escapist way) the ideological struggles of the present.
Alison Blair from Global Glam and Popular Music: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s by Ian Chapman and Henry Johnson
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