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Fisher’s The Witch Of The Westmorland, gui- tar and synth combining to create an effec- tively eerie setting; the atmospheric sound- scapes of The Mermaid and Night Lament and the unexpectedly funky musical accou- trements populating the superb I’ll Be Wise give this album a distinctive edge on most of its predecessors.
There’s a real confidence not just in the band and production, but in Kate’s writing too, which occupies half the album. The sensi- tive title track is clearly inspired by the migrant crisis and images of those desperately piling into boats at sea, while the romantic imagery of Hunter Moon is on a par with Underneath The Stars. Even the semi-novelty singalong Big Brave Bill – a sort of Barnsley version of Big Bad John – brings a smile and agreeable light relief.
Oddly, she’s slightly shakier at the tradi- tional end of things. With memories of The Watersons’ definitive version still fresh, it’s hard to warm to her dainty treatment of Pace Egging Song; and despite the band’s best vig- orous efforts, Benjamin Bowmaneer struggles to reach lift-off.
Yet there’s plenty of evidence to suggest this will prove one of her most enduring works.
www.katerusby.com Colin Irwin
NANCY KERR Instar Little Dish LiDiCD002
Steeped in folk song all her life, we always knew Nancy Kerr was a beautiful singer, a nifty fiddle player and a thoughtful inter- preter. What has been more of a surprise has been her emergence latterly as a fully round- ed songwriter, crafting songs of unusual depth and complexity. Like Karine Polwart, with whom there are many parallels, her music, themes and lyricism are often shaped by association with the tradition, yet they come in many layers of thought and refer- ence, while examining the modern condition.
Beautifully art-worked, the central theme here is the environment in all its forms; but nothing is as it seems and, seem- ingly inspired by writers such as Rob Cowen, Helen McDonald and George Monbiot, songs ostensibly about hijabs, car parks, migration
George Monbiot & Ewan MacLennan
and the Magna Carta carry a far wider mean- ing and sensibility. The excellent Ginger- bread, for example, a bit of a piledriver, imperceptibly develops from a celebration of pepper-based gingerbread into a song about hunger and poverty.
She has a particularly evocative and poetic turn of phrase:”Last night I ran with Reynardine as she was made to yield/To shad- ows of a darker time when blood lusts were heeded” (Written On My Skin); “The winter is a tyrant but my love is like a flame/My love is gone to Babylon and I am left with rain” (Sis- terhood);”As the ocean courts the strand/’Til he becomes the grit that surges in her/So generations will understand/We are all beat- en sand and fragile water” (Fragile Water). There’s serious imagery there.
The deeper resonances aren’t always clearly evident and as such her songs have their challenges, but the challenge she impos- es is an absorbing one, especially when accompanied not only by her melt-in-the- mouth vocals, but her Sweet Visitor Band, sounding now very much like a proper, uni- fied unit, featuring the venerable instrumen- tation of James Fagan, Tom Wright, Rowan Rheingans, Tim Yates and Greg Russell, with CJ Hillman joining the party to play some lovely twelve-string electric guitar on Farewell Stony Ground and Written On My Skin and pedal steel on Sisterhood.
A serious album for serious listeners with many thought-provoking issues at its heart… but if that sounds a bit daunting, it rocks along nicely too.
www.nancykerr.co.uk Colin Irwin
EWAN McLENNAN & GEORGE MONBIOT
Breaking The Spell of Loneliness Fellside FECD277
So here’s the story: Guardian writer and environmentalist George Monbiot did a piece about the social breakdown of society and the resultant virus of loneliness this has caused. “Never before have we, the supremely social mammal, been so isolated,”
wrote Monbiot. “The results are devastating: a collapse of common purpose, the replace- ment of civic life with a fug of consumerism, insecurity and alienation. We cannot carry on like this.”
It struck such a chord with so many peo- ple that publishers asked him to expand his theories into a book but, adopting the princi- ple that the most unifying artistic form of all is music, Monbiot approached instead Ewan McLennan with the idea of making an album together reflecting these ideas.
Not the easiest topic to encompass in a thematic album… do you beat people over the head saying be more friendly to one another or do you put together a body of songs portraying a world of misery and despair? McLennan’s history both as a writer and song interpreter is long steeped in politi- cal content, but he doesn’t go in for beating over the head and – largely shaping and hon- ing Monbiot’s sketches into musical form – this turns out to be a quietly beguiling and humane collection of stories on the topic of alienation.
These Four Walls is about an old woman who goes to the supermarket for a chat to relieve her boredom only to find the tills have been replaced by automated checkouts; The Child Inside tackles the problem of children shackled to their computers when they used to be outside playing with their friends; The Night Desk portrays an evening at a police station observing the human wrecks parad- ing in and out; I’m Coming Home depicts the lot of immigrant hotel workers based on sto- ries gleaned from an internet blog.
Which may all sound a bit dull and wor-
thy, a recipe for broadening despair rather than spreading hope and unity; but there’s an engaging beauty in these songs and delivery. There are no grand musical gestures, although we do get sympathetic accompani- ments from Lauren MacColl (violin), Sid Gold- smith (slide guitar), Donald Shaw (harmoni- um) and Beth Porter (cello). And there is an underlying sense of optimism. Such A Thing As Society is defiantly upbeat, Reclaim The Street is an anthem of sorts and the album concludes with a quietly moving We Shall Overcome.
Now go and hug your neighbours.
www.fellside.com
Colin Irwin
STONE BREATH Cryptids Hand/Eye h/e066
The latest (eighteenth?!) album by the dark lords of doom-folk is probably the most accomplished, accessible and appealing of their long and prolific career. The duo of Æ Hoskin and Timothy Renner perform on “bouzouki, jug drum, wood flute, banjo, mandocello, shakers, snare pad, recorder, bell, motheart, bodhran, cymbals, symbols, balalaika, sticks, glockenspiel, cello banjo, harmonium and jaw harp”, with additional bass and mandolin by Rod Goelz and cameo appearances by harper Prydwyn and Eyeless In Gaza’s singer Martyn Bates.
The twelve tracks are all (with the excep- tion of the thematically-congruous gory tra- ditional ballad Long Lankin) new songs inspired by Pennsylvania folklore, cryptozoo- logical creatures, ghosts and legends. The old-time clawhammer banjo that opens the album sounds almost sprightly (ulp!) but from the moment that the first line – “In The Red Witch House, something is stirring…” is intoned, you know exactly who you’re listen- ing to. The goth-factor is ramped-up to the maximum on The Singing Corpse – a ghost story found in newspaper from 1902, con- cerning a waking corpse who would appear on a certain grave after midnight and sing
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