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| Track List: 1. Felton Lonnin 2. Lull I 3. Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk 4. I Wish 5. Blue's Gaen oot o' the Fashion 6. Lull II: My Lad's a Canny Lad 7. Blackbird 8. Lull III: A Minor Place 9. Sea Song 10. Whitethorn 11. Lull IV: Can't Stop It Raining 12. My Donald 13. Ma Bonny Lad 14. Fareweel Regality 15. Newcastle Lullaby Running time: 65 minutes Released: 2007 |
This was actually the Unthanks' second album, but the first that captured my attention. I am not sure whether it was before or after their Mercury nod that I picked it up or, if before what drove me to do so. My appreciation or otherwise of these northern songstresses waxes and wanes quite a bit. I have seen them perform and loved it, but I have also skipped through track after track without paying any attention at all. I am curious what forcing myself to listen to them will reveal in terms of engagement and enjoyment.
It is a slow start this, with the opening track taking time to get moving - and even then it is not the most urgent of tunes. Dialect rules here, very affected north eastern delivery but it is very clearly in dialect and not in accent - though the two are clearly related. There are long instrumental periods here, and the arrangement is a little too sparse to really support that. It has a slow movie soundtrack air about it in those segments, not the theme I would really expect to accompany a folk song about cows, so it does have some interest, but it drifts too long, unfocused, rather than giving a tight rendition. And then a "Lull" - one of four interludes. I have never understood why these need to appear on records, and especially not so close to the start, or so close together. To be fair, it is a much more engaging interlude than many, and at a minute and a half it has time to deliver something.
Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk is a song that I am primarily familiar with through James Yorkston, but it is good to hear it sung from the female perspective that its narrative conveys. The piano accompaniment is really nicely played here, soft and supportive, and the main theme is carried well. There is a decent acceleration and shift in gear for the arrangement as the song progresses, but the vocal loses something of its allure when the pace picks up. Overall I think I prefer Yorkston's recording but this is different enough to maintain both happily. I Wish is very nicely performed. My problem with it is the slow, drawn out performance - there is no energy to it, no demand to be paid attention to whatsoever. It gets weirder about two thirds through when frantically whispered lines appear over a fake-tension key line - it is just at odds with the delivery, and really the song would have been better shut down at that point.
Ah, a bit more rhythm and pace. A soft-sung harmony and a bright melody - there has not been enough of this. It slows down when it swells in volume but the injection of some tempo is welcome, and it returns outside of the chorus. I have to say I prefer my folk with a bit more punch. Faster, lighter, brighter, bolder. Laments have their place and can be wonderful but the main attraction of traditional music for me is the music that reflects the joy and community that spawned tunes, bound people together and so forth. Dance tunes, feel good music. The songs do not have to be happy but having life to them helps. Tenderness is great and all, but give it to us with a tune and a structure and some energy and I will be happier. Their rendition of Blackbird has enough of these pieces and it is a treasure.
It is also half as long as the majority of the other pieces, and I think that is my biggest disappointment with this disc thus far: the tunes are spun out, worn thin by the end. The songs are always nicely sung, and well played, but several are performed so sedately that nodding off is a real danger, and the next one does not start soon enough to jolt you out of that sedation. That some, like Sea Song, meander to their ends, disappearing with a whimper, exacerbates this. The disc clocks in at 65 minutes; had the songs been arranged with the urgency to bring it in at 45 it could have been wonderful. Of course, it would not then have the hallmarks that make the Unthanks stand out - bold vocals with arrangement to support them and a slow deliberate delivery that really does let their voices stand out.
I am conflicted in how I feel about this one, perhaps more so than with any of the albums I have been through yet. I think that, as I wrote in the opening paragraph here, the Unthanks are very variable in appreciation - and I have little doubt that this style is much more effective for a live audience where it is easier to get drawn into the performance (which is ever impressive) rather than becoming concerned with the shortfalls of the construction as I am here. I find there are little sections or passages here that I love - there is an instrumental bridge in My Donald that is strikingly lovely, for instance, lost in the midst of 8 minutes of wandering - but overall I am not really feeling this as an album to listen to other than in an audience were they to play it all live.
There are some fine songs here - Blackbird, of course, but also Fareweel Regality where the rise and fall of the vocal through the chorus is softly lilting magic. Alas the presentation as a whole does not, I feel, support them well. I wish the beauty of the individual performances - singers and musicians - on the album were better combined into a greater whole but unfortunately the worth of The Bairns is, I would say, significantly less than the sum of its parts. It seems fitting that it ends with an overlong, under-interesting lullaby.
It is a slow start this, with the opening track taking time to get moving - and even then it is not the most urgent of tunes. Dialect rules here, very affected north eastern delivery but it is very clearly in dialect and not in accent - though the two are clearly related. There are long instrumental periods here, and the arrangement is a little too sparse to really support that. It has a slow movie soundtrack air about it in those segments, not the theme I would really expect to accompany a folk song about cows, so it does have some interest, but it drifts too long, unfocused, rather than giving a tight rendition. And then a "Lull" - one of four interludes. I have never understood why these need to appear on records, and especially not so close to the start, or so close together. To be fair, it is a much more engaging interlude than many, and at a minute and a half it has time to deliver something.
Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk is a song that I am primarily familiar with through James Yorkston, but it is good to hear it sung from the female perspective that its narrative conveys. The piano accompaniment is really nicely played here, soft and supportive, and the main theme is carried well. There is a decent acceleration and shift in gear for the arrangement as the song progresses, but the vocal loses something of its allure when the pace picks up. Overall I think I prefer Yorkston's recording but this is different enough to maintain both happily. I Wish is very nicely performed. My problem with it is the slow, drawn out performance - there is no energy to it, no demand to be paid attention to whatsoever. It gets weirder about two thirds through when frantically whispered lines appear over a fake-tension key line - it is just at odds with the delivery, and really the song would have been better shut down at that point.
Ah, a bit more rhythm and pace. A soft-sung harmony and a bright melody - there has not been enough of this. It slows down when it swells in volume but the injection of some tempo is welcome, and it returns outside of the chorus. I have to say I prefer my folk with a bit more punch. Faster, lighter, brighter, bolder. Laments have their place and can be wonderful but the main attraction of traditional music for me is the music that reflects the joy and community that spawned tunes, bound people together and so forth. Dance tunes, feel good music. The songs do not have to be happy but having life to them helps. Tenderness is great and all, but give it to us with a tune and a structure and some energy and I will be happier. Their rendition of Blackbird has enough of these pieces and it is a treasure.
It is also half as long as the majority of the other pieces, and I think that is my biggest disappointment with this disc thus far: the tunes are spun out, worn thin by the end. The songs are always nicely sung, and well played, but several are performed so sedately that nodding off is a real danger, and the next one does not start soon enough to jolt you out of that sedation. That some, like Sea Song, meander to their ends, disappearing with a whimper, exacerbates this. The disc clocks in at 65 minutes; had the songs been arranged with the urgency to bring it in at 45 it could have been wonderful. Of course, it would not then have the hallmarks that make the Unthanks stand out - bold vocals with arrangement to support them and a slow deliberate delivery that really does let their voices stand out.
I am conflicted in how I feel about this one, perhaps more so than with any of the albums I have been through yet. I think that, as I wrote in the opening paragraph here, the Unthanks are very variable in appreciation - and I have little doubt that this style is much more effective for a live audience where it is easier to get drawn into the performance (which is ever impressive) rather than becoming concerned with the shortfalls of the construction as I am here. I find there are little sections or passages here that I love - there is an instrumental bridge in My Donald that is strikingly lovely, for instance, lost in the midst of 8 minutes of wandering - but overall I am not really feeling this as an album to listen to other than in an audience were they to play it all live.
There are some fine songs here - Blackbird, of course, but also Fareweel Regality where the rise and fall of the vocal through the chorus is softly lilting magic. Alas the presentation as a whole does not, I feel, support them well. I wish the beauty of the individual performances - singers and musicians - on the album were better combined into a greater whole but unfortunately the worth of The Bairns is, I would say, significantly less than the sum of its parts. It seems fitting that it ends with an overlong, under-interesting lullaby.
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