fR316 PAGES 54-71 (11 Pgs) 1/9/09 12:59 Page 2
55 f
THE UNTHANKS
There’s a dreamy version of Anne Briggs’
Living By The Water and they also do a pretty
Here’s The Tender Coming EMI 687 1222
good job on The Testimony Of Patience Ker-
shaw, another classic of sorts, previously
It’s been an eventful
memorably recorded by Roy Bailey and Elle
couple of years for
Osborne, among others. Here they use
The Unthanks with a
forthright cello lines as a backdrop to Rachel’s
surge of mainstream
appealing interpretation of the heartbreak-
success few could
ing evidence of a 17-year-old girl about her
have predicted, a major label deal and a
working conditions to a Royal Commission on
nomination for the Mercury Music Prize
Childrens Employment in 1842. They also
(which, by all accounts, they came remarkably
wring every last drop of emotion out of
close to winning). Another album, another
Nobody Knew She Was There, Ewan Mac-
personnel upheaval and this time even a
Coll’s powerful song about his mother; auto-
name change as Becky Unthank gets equal
harp is the secret weapon here with a mourn-
billing with her elder sister and the ‘difficult’
ful trumpet supplying the coup de grâce.
seat on the piano stool is assumed by Adrian
McNally, Rachel Unthank’s husband and the
They are certainly uninhibited in their
offstage driving force behind them since
use of instrumentation but are reassuringly
their first album, Cruel Sister.
sparing with it, seemingly well aware of the
fragility of the moods they create. It’s a deli-
Like any genre artists who crack the
cate balance and it topples over only fleeting-
code to crossover appeal they divide opinion
ly – the use of drums jar against the tragedy
but, perhaps unusually in this respect,
of Flowers Of The Town and I started off hat-
they’ve done it without selling their souls or
ing Lucky Gilchrist, with its determined string
compromising their musical roots. Nobody
barrage, slightly too poppy backing vocals
could possibly accuse them of going out of
and big production, but Adrian McNally’s cel-
their way to seduce the masses on their
ebratory epitaph to a late friend lends an
breakthrough record The Bairns – as dark,
upbeat spirit that has started to win me over
complex and downbeat as they come – and
and offers a lively respite from the moody
some sort of psychological analysis might be
atmospherics going on around it.
in order to ascertain why people with no
insight into folk song were so smitten by its
But more power to them for that. Many
honesty and vulnerability while the folk
assumed the departure of their popular
world snipers were out in force.
pianist Belinda O’Hooley would deaden their
appeal and ingenuity, but their heart has
This time round they’re clearly working
always been the chemistry between Rachel
to a bigger budget, with brass and a string
and Becky. Their voices – and in fact their
section among the supporting cast, yet while
whole approach to singing – are entirely dif-
it is unquestionably more sophisticated than
ferent but when they combine, they create a
the previous two records, their feet remain
rare, undisciplined magic. Allied to the
firmly on the (Northumbrian) soil and they’ve
unselfconscious invention which they bring
dug even deeper into the melancholy her-
into play to constantly probe and surprise,
itage of traditional song for the core of this
this is another formidable work.
album. The title track – once recorded almost
definitively by Dave Burland – is given a
www.the-unthanks.com
meandering sorrow underlined by Niopha
Colin Irwin
Keegan’s lamenting fiddle and their affect-
ingly haunting harmony vocals. This bold
belief in the strength of such studied and qui-
etly charged arrangements and their willing-
FRANCO & LE TPOK JAZZ
ness to embrace the unorthodox to make
Francophonic Vol. 2: 1980-1989 Stern’s
their own stamp on the music is not merely
STCD3046-47
one of the traits of this record, it’s key to why
they connect with a wider audience. They When I got the first
proudly display their roots in traditional double-CD volume of
music on their sleeves, but use untraditional Francophonic last
methods to purvey it. They do a similar thing year I didn’t read the
with another acknowledged folk classic, Nic small print and com-
Jones’s Annachie Gordon, delivered with a plained about certain favourite tracks not
very natural sense of drama by Becky over a being included. Idiot, I was soon informed:
very weird, yet effective chime bar percus- there’s another two CDs to come. And here
sion. It’s risky, but it works. they are, covering the ‘80s, the great man’s
The Unthanks
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92