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shimmer of fragile life against a big sky. The electronica is primal and sharp, and Lucas’s ideas are substantial around the damaged purity of the vocals. And the songs, so often heard in more reverent settings, suggest a kind of geographical séance, still holy, for the rural Hungary I know and its severe but strangely beautiful landscape. Bindweed blowing through the small village ennui.
There has been hopeful talk of live dates in the UK. Last August they premièred much of this material at Budapest’s famously swelter- ing and dusty Sziget festival, at one o’clock in the morning. One cannot imagine a fitter place or time in which to experience this big music than during a witching hour in the heat of a Central European high summer on a dusty island in the middle of a Danube in disguise.
www.acrobatmusic.net John Pheby
RUNRIG The Story Ridge RR078
There’s no way this could fail to be an emo- tional, spiritual album, for if there is one band who are steeped in the yesterdays, todays and tomorrows of their land, it is Run- rig. After four decades of highly-charged atmosphere, huge soundscapes, intrinsic rock and an attitude which made for a healthy individuality, they’ve decided to bring down the curtain, at least as far as the studio is con- cerned. There will be gigs in the future but this is their recorded farewell. To be short, it’s everything they are and that’s brilliant. The Story is their story.
The title track opens, an instant classic,
there’s a poignant whisper of a vocal from Rory McDonald, a catch in his voice and a circling guitar line, a man lost in yesterday longing for and dreaming of his youth in the Hebrides. The band reaches a mellow midpoint when all hell gloriously breaks free, a pounding dance track underscores Iain Bayne’s thundering drums and Malcolm Jones soars a lead guitar break over valley and glen. It’s mighty.
Naturally there is much inward contem- plation and not only in the writing; keyboard player Brian Hurren’s stepped up to the mark as producer, even gamely integrating the 32- piece Prague Symphony Orchestra with superb effect. Capturing the sounds the McDonald bothers intended perfectly, he moves from heartbreaking tenderness to full- on Gaelic storm. The sureness of his instincts are proved by a reflection on the all-night gatherings of the embryonic Runrig Dance Band, The Place Where The Rivers Run, accordeon to the fore and a deep reeling under-melody and shouts of glee, “we’ll turn this village hall into a city full of lights”, then the philosophy “home by Kyle and Broad- ford, round by Memphis, Tennessee”. That’s Runrig musically as well as inspirationally, the track is pure celebration. Likewise Every Beat- ing Heart, a gorgeous, rolling, acoustic thing, passing generations, full of equal shots of sentiment and determination.
Special mention though has to go to
Somewhere – perhaps the most enlightening and emotive track they’ve tackled since the days of Recovery and The Old Boys – recorded as honour to Dr Laurel Clark who perished aboard the shuttle Columbia as it broke up re-entering the earth’s atmosphere in 2003. She’d played Runrig throughout her time aboard, her family even presented her The Cutter & The Clan CD rescued from the shut- tle debris to the band. Their answer is deeply moving, a rolling sweep of strings and spiritu- ality. Quietly, as the track fades, there’s a brief snatch of Laurel Clark chatting from beyond the Earth, static and she’s gone. The stillness and silence which follows weighs heavy. They’ve crafted a truly evocative clos- ing. It’s worth the price of the album alone.
Swapping between Gaelic and English within the same song attests that Runrig long ago achieved their principal goal of giving their native tongue and their heritage a place in contemporary culture.
Runrig’s Story is a tale well told and indisputably worth hearing.
www.runrig.co.uk
Simon Jones SIERRA HULL
Weighted Mind Rounder Records 11661- 9166-2
Sierra Hull is a mandolin virtuoso and former child prodigy who signed to Rounder Records when she was just thirteen-years-old. This, her first new album in five years, is produced by Béla Fleck and features harmony vocals from Rhiannon Giddens, Alison Krauss and Abigail Washburn. Reading those simple facts, one might well be anticipating an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink extravaganza of an album. This is something very different and very much better than that.
Weighted Mind is a sparsely accompa- nied record. Fleck supplies banjo on Queen Of Hearts/Royal Tea and Black River but oth- erwise the instrumentation consists of Hull’s own mandolin and octave mandolin, sup- ported throughout by the supple bass playing of Ethan Jodziewicz.
Lyrically (as one might expect from the
title) it’s intensely personal. Hull has clearly exorcised some demons in those five silent years, producing a body of unflinchingly plain-spoken songs in the process. There’s a killer line in almost every song – “if love was unconditional… well it ain’t no more” (Birthday), “I’m tired of trying to be some- one else” (Choices And Changes), “I can’t chase away my doubt” (Weighted Mind) and “I don’t think that I can bear much more pain…” (I’ll Be Fine).
More than just heartbreak songs, Hull’s lyrics explore and affirm her knowledge of who she is – an artist defined but no longer constrained by her particular gift. Despite her instrumentation and pedigree, this isn’t a bluegrass record, nor (radio-friendly melodic hooks notwithstanding) is it a ‘cross-over’ or a pop album. It’s just Sierra Hull making the best, most honest music she can, and that’s more than good enough.
www.sierrahull.com
Steve Hunt Sierra Hull
BLUE ROSE CODE
…And Lo! The Bird Is On The Wing! Ronachan Songs RSCD0003
Each new album put forward by Blue Rose Code is a sequel in an intensely personal nar- rative, an episodic story perpetually unfold- ing, populated with real, recurring charac- ters. Ruptured romances you had once been emotionally invested in. Old enemies that rear their heads. Familiar neighbourhoods previously called home, since forsaken. New terrains to navigate. It takes bravery to lay the soul bare as Ross Wilson does, albeit veiled beneath musical moniker Blue Rose Code. Intimate they may be, these candid lyrics are also perilously universal; And Lo! is the third in a saga of records that will awak- en every existential fear, every bygone bruise, every buried parcel of emotion you thought you had tucked safely to bed.
In spite of expansive themes, from the retrospective to the prospective, in a way the songs are all pieces of the same jigsaw, a vis- ceral exploration of steady lyrical motifs. His first album, North Ten, included wedding proposals and love songs: “If I asked you for your hand tonight… I would sing this to our children”. Now, in the most heartrending and arresting track on the new album, the stark Pokesdown Waltz, Ross confronts the disinte- gration of this same marriage, but tenderly promises to always sing those old love songs: “they’re yours and they’re mine”. True to his word, he revisits his former single, Love, this time with a sombre, nigh funeralesque treat- ment. The premise of much of this music is catharsis, clemency and reconciliation.
This third album takes a noticeably jazzi- er direction than its predecessors, brass and keys stepping up next to Ross’s rolling guitar and Danny Thompson’s bass. The gospel velour of The McCrary Sisters brings exhilara- tion to tracks like Grateful and My Heart, My Sun, while the honeyed clarity of American singer Wrenne provides a foil to Ross’s own coarse, colloquial vocal. Even Ewan McGregor makes a cameo appearance. Sonically chal- lenging, the music regularly unfurls into euphoric disarray. Although still plagued by the shadow of old addictions and mortal fears, there is optimism and contentment beginning to win out in these raw songs.
Until the next instalment, with bated breath.
www.bluerosecode.com Kitty Macfarlane
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