 |
| Track list: 1. Willie o Winsbury (Child 100) 2. Willie's Lady (Child 6) 3. Sir Patrick Spens (Child 58) 4. Riddles Wisely Expounded (Child 1) 5. Clyde's Water (Child 216) 6. Geordie (Child 209) 7. Tam Lin (Child 39) Running time: 39 minutes Released: 2013 |
Americans take on British folk ballads. I would never have picked this up had I not heard and loved some of Anaïs Mitchell's music elsewhere. I have at least three of these tunes by other artists in very different forms - including a version of Willie o Winsbury that I really love by the late Charlotte Greig, whose At Llangennith (on which said version is found) is still one of my favourite albums.
Here it opens with Mitchell's somewhat strangled voice offset by Hamer's pitching higher. Its a strange role reversal, but it works. The tune here is simply and stripped back to give the duet the spotlight. Already I have had to correct too many typos in this post, I think my ability to type is dying. My hands are actually aching a bit in worrying fashion, despite my not having to work today and thus I haven't subjected them to a barrage of typing already. I discovered Anaïs Mitchell through this project, as she was included on a BBC Folk Awards album. I have picked up a fair bit since. Her voice is different, but pleasantly so. This version of the tune is so different from Greig's that without knowing it was the same song supporting both I would never have picked up on it. This is simple and acoustic, with nothing of the enveloping warmth on a dark winter night of Greig's take. Here it is nice but not woven into my psyche in the same way.
I find myself less enamoured of Willie's Lady. The tune that they pick out is rather... flat. The volume on the guitar is a more significant factor in the shaping of this song, and the line is just not engaging at all. Add to that a bit of forced jauntiness in rhythm and song and I find the effort tiresome. I wonder if I am bouncing off because of my mood, my expectations or some other reason, and I hope that it is just this track that annoys me.
I have 4 versions of Sir Patrick Spens, putting Mitchell and Hamer in the company of Yorkston, Boden and Fairport Convention. I was only consciously aware of the Yorkston version, and could not call the tune to mind. Happily I find I like this. The simple inclusion of a fiddle to offset the guitar lending a nice feel to the composition, and the dueting voices fit better here than on Willie's Lady - there is no forced happiness, no injected bounce, no annoying carry to the rhythm. There are swells and lulls, there is a top end from the violin. It is, I think, this last item that really helps shape the tune. You can't have British folk with no fiddle!*
We now head into a run of three tunes that I do not recognise by name. I dislike the conceit of construction in Riddles Wisely Expounded, where every other line cycles a 2-line call and answer, and the actual lyrics are on the odd lines. Its just dull and unnecessarily repetitive. I imagine this is reproduced faithfully so it can't be held against our performers, other than through their choice of ballads to include. That said, it is Child 1; the first amongst many. I am falling, again, into the blow-by-blow, failing to avoid short snippets about each track. So to digress deliberately, whilst Mitchell carries a verse without her partner, making a nice change, I have a long weekend, 4 days. I also have only 1 full week in 6, thanks to strategic holiday (carried from 2016) and Easter. I hope that this concentration of 4-day weeks will help me rediscover my energy after a long while of feeling enervated. I plan to get back on the bike I bought last September to get some exercise. I plan to enjoy the warmer weather if it arrives, the longer days. Maybe the sun will show up. We had a nice day on Wednesday, I think. I was working from home, and made several trips down the garden - taken out recycling - to feel sun on skin.
Back on the record we're hitting Geordie. As it starts I immediately remember the tune. I am not over-keen on the bright roll injected into the lines here, they trill up and down and it seems to go against the dark tale told by the song. There are some very nice points to the song - I like that Hamer carries most of it for instance, reversing the normal balance of the two voices - but it ends rather abruptly. Much shorter than the other numbers here, it feels incomplete as a result, pitching us into Tam Lin.
This I really like. Here the natural rhythm to word and playing feels like it fits, it lends a sense of personality, of point, to the opening verse. Mitchell's voice over the lightly-touched guitar is a wonderful combination. The way these two attack this classic is entirely in keeping with what little I know of the song, which mostly comes from the modernised tale narrated by Benjamin Zephaniah for The Imagined Village. They have the right sense of urgency, the right tone. It's a really strong closing track - easily my favourite from the seven presented. If you look up one ballad from this set, make it Tam Lin.
*Of course you can.
Here it opens with Mitchell's somewhat strangled voice offset by Hamer's pitching higher. Its a strange role reversal, but it works. The tune here is simply and stripped back to give the duet the spotlight. Already I have had to correct too many typos in this post, I think my ability to type is dying. My hands are actually aching a bit in worrying fashion, despite my not having to work today and thus I haven't subjected them to a barrage of typing already. I discovered Anaïs Mitchell through this project, as she was included on a BBC Folk Awards album. I have picked up a fair bit since. Her voice is different, but pleasantly so. This version of the tune is so different from Greig's that without knowing it was the same song supporting both I would never have picked up on it. This is simple and acoustic, with nothing of the enveloping warmth on a dark winter night of Greig's take. Here it is nice but not woven into my psyche in the same way.
I find myself less enamoured of Willie's Lady. The tune that they pick out is rather... flat. The volume on the guitar is a more significant factor in the shaping of this song, and the line is just not engaging at all. Add to that a bit of forced jauntiness in rhythm and song and I find the effort tiresome. I wonder if I am bouncing off because of my mood, my expectations or some other reason, and I hope that it is just this track that annoys me.
I have 4 versions of Sir Patrick Spens, putting Mitchell and Hamer in the company of Yorkston, Boden and Fairport Convention. I was only consciously aware of the Yorkston version, and could not call the tune to mind. Happily I find I like this. The simple inclusion of a fiddle to offset the guitar lending a nice feel to the composition, and the dueting voices fit better here than on Willie's Lady - there is no forced happiness, no injected bounce, no annoying carry to the rhythm. There are swells and lulls, there is a top end from the violin. It is, I think, this last item that really helps shape the tune. You can't have British folk with no fiddle!*
We now head into a run of three tunes that I do not recognise by name. I dislike the conceit of construction in Riddles Wisely Expounded, where every other line cycles a 2-line call and answer, and the actual lyrics are on the odd lines. Its just dull and unnecessarily repetitive. I imagine this is reproduced faithfully so it can't be held against our performers, other than through their choice of ballads to include. That said, it is Child 1; the first amongst many. I am falling, again, into the blow-by-blow, failing to avoid short snippets about each track. So to digress deliberately, whilst Mitchell carries a verse without her partner, making a nice change, I have a long weekend, 4 days. I also have only 1 full week in 6, thanks to strategic holiday (carried from 2016) and Easter. I hope that this concentration of 4-day weeks will help me rediscover my energy after a long while of feeling enervated. I plan to get back on the bike I bought last September to get some exercise. I plan to enjoy the warmer weather if it arrives, the longer days. Maybe the sun will show up. We had a nice day on Wednesday, I think. I was working from home, and made several trips down the garden - taken out recycling - to feel sun on skin.
Back on the record we're hitting Geordie. As it starts I immediately remember the tune. I am not over-keen on the bright roll injected into the lines here, they trill up and down and it seems to go against the dark tale told by the song. There are some very nice points to the song - I like that Hamer carries most of it for instance, reversing the normal balance of the two voices - but it ends rather abruptly. Much shorter than the other numbers here, it feels incomplete as a result, pitching us into Tam Lin.
This I really like. Here the natural rhythm to word and playing feels like it fits, it lends a sense of personality, of point, to the opening verse. Mitchell's voice over the lightly-touched guitar is a wonderful combination. The way these two attack this classic is entirely in keeping with what little I know of the song, which mostly comes from the modernised tale narrated by Benjamin Zephaniah for The Imagined Village. They have the right sense of urgency, the right tone. It's a really strong closing track - easily my favourite from the seven presented. If you look up one ballad from this set, make it Tam Lin.
*Of course you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment