root salad Thom Ashcroft
Hey, hey, it’s the new wave of new folk blokes, part 2. This instalment from Chris Nickson
Y
ou can tell when an artist has that something which sets them apart. It brings a quickening of the blood, a smile, the certainty that
this is good. Hollow, the second EP from singer and acoustic bass guitarist Thom Ashworth, definitely stirs the senses. Two traditional songs and a pair of his own compositions that sound as if they’ve been pulled out of history, all performed with beautiful compassion and a current of righ- teous anger. His debut, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, brought plenty of glowing reviews, but this is a giant step ahead. It’s confident, polished, the sound of a man whose music is fully formed.
“People have been saying nice things, coming to gigs, and it all gives a boost,” Ashworth says. In many ways, the EPs mark a return to his musical roots, the deep inter- est in folk first sparked as a teen growing up in Hampshire. But he took a different path for a long time.
“I studied double bass when I was young, then bass guitar in music college.” But all the way through, he’d also been studying recording, after a friend of his father’s gave him a copy of the Cubase soft- ware when he was 15. “I’ve worked as an engineer and I’ve taught music technology. After college I was in indie bands, playing guitar and keyboards, although I can’t say I’m a guitarist or a keyboard player. But they made sense in that context.”
It was that time on the fringes of rock that gave him the grounding for what he does now, at least in terms of releasing music.
“We were DIY,” he recalls, “that’s how we did things. No pauses, we put out albums and EPs and singles.”
Coming back to folk after so long has felt like a return to his proper roots.
“I moved to the East End of London, and that feels more like home than any- where I’ve lived. Growing up in the com- muter belt, there are no roots there, they’re bedroom communities. I always felt like an outsider. But there are a lot of people who feel this way. Even nationalists feel it; they’re just the other side of the same coin.” That sense of Englishness is a theme that runs through Ashworth’s work. “In my live show I do a lot of songs about soldiers, about being poor and English, and why I’m shameful and want to be proud. Why I describe myself as British.”
The sensibility is there in his selection of material and the fire that burns in his per- formances. Listen to his song Crispin’s Day,
with its references to war and loss, and the spirit of Chris Wood seems to hover close by.
“I’m a big fan of his; he and Martin Carthy are my favourite solo guitar and voice performers.”
But Ashworth certainly has his own voice, and by playing solo acoustic bass gui- tar, a unique way of presenting material. He does it in a way that never feels lacking in sound or texture.
“I spend a lot of time thinking how to arrange songs so I can play them and record them,” he explains. “Since the songs are all chorded, I use a lot of acoustic guitar tech- nique, thumb and two fingers. It’s a mix of percussive and melodic, and I use a capo on some songs. I like voicing a chord so the bass note isn’t the lowest note – I spend a lot of time faffing around to get all the notes I need.”
bout two-thirds of his set is tradi- tional material, and “even when I do one of mine I try to make it feel like part of the tradition. The whole purpose is to be in that line. And I do some songs people think are traditional, like Crow On The Cradle or Poverty Knock, which are really neither one thing nor the other. The folk community has been very supportive, and I’m glad to be involved in it. If I was an acoustic singer-songwriter, there might be thousands I could reach, but
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I’d be one of so many in that world. Folk is like a tiny village in that world, a place where you can be heard.”
And one which feels very much like home to Ashworth. He’s brought his experi- ence from other areas of music to what he’s doing now, approaching it all thoughtfully and sensibly. Above all, realistically.
“I want to make a full album, and I’ve applied for PRS funding for studio time and to pay a couple of other people to play. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll do a record without it. Either way, hopefully it will be out in early 2019. I can budget my time to make it work. But between now and then I’ll probably release another four or five songs. But there are places that won’t review my work if it’s not a full album.”
Very quickly (although with plenty of background spadework), Thom Ashworth has become the finished article, with depth, skill, and plenty of style. There’s a very bright future ahead. But that doesn’t mean he’s not eager for outside experiences.
“I play my own work, but I like to work with others, too,” he says. “So if Jon Boden or Jim Moray or anyone is looking for a bass player…”
Hear his take on Work Life Out To Keep
Life In on this issue’s fRoots 68 compilation.
thomashworth.com
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