The Ayrtime.org Digital E.P. - Alasdair Roberts

Track list:

1. Babylon
2. Little Sir Hugh
3. Lord Ronald
4. The Calfless Cow

Running time: 16 minutes
Released: 2010

This a free digital-only EP available here. 

 

I have apparently racked up 9 scrobbles of these tracks without ever realising it or any of them sinking in so this is pretty much like a first (and possibly last) look.

I do not recall what exactly got me to pick up music by Alasdair Roberts. It may have been an appearance on the BBC's Transatlantic Sessions, perhaps but I might be pulling that out of my behind. I do not have much by him and have generally found him slightly too dry for my taste - simple and plain guitar and him singing in a voice that does not entirely sit well with me. That pretty much describes Babylon to a T - the song does nothing for me and his too-quick progression from line to line, as good as joining them together helps un-sell me fast.

Little Sir Hugh is more promising, a different tone and a slower, more structured vocal give this a more full, rounded sound despite the same minimalist approach. I actually like this song, and the more intricate and stronger guitar of the bridge just confirms this impression. Roberts' voice carries an edge that is tough to appreciate but to give him his due it works with certain tones, bleaker and darker themes suit his plaintive style whilst with more melodic or lighter songs it grates. Lord Ronald gives it too much space, for example, and I find that it sets my teeth on edge. Whilst the song is pretty dark, the instrumentation is not - lightly picked and with no backing it gives him the rope his voice needs to hang him from the tree of my disinterest.

The final song here is The Calfless Cow, which I have to say is a crap song title. It is a short number (sub 2 minutes) that has a nicer guitar part again. Unlike Little Sir Hugh though, on this occasion the improved instrumentation does not offset the element of Roberts' voice that wears upon me, so it will be joining Lord Ronald in Babylon away from my machine. Little Sir Hugh can stay with me.

That concludes my posting for 2014, and concludes the selection of albums, EPs and individual tracks listed under A in my Windows Media Player library. In the last 4 1/2 months I have managed 95 listens for this project - significantly less than 10% of the total. I am pleased to have got this far and still maintain the desire to continue. Looking ahead to B I can see some favourites coming up, as well as a load of random bits and bobs and the first occasions where I am likely to tinker with the order for reasons other than new purchases. Roll on 2015, and Happy New Year to the world.

The Awkward Recruit - Mawkin:Causley

Track list:

1. Jolly Broom Man
2. L'Homme Arme
3. Drummer Boy for Waterloo
4. Keeper of the Game
5. Cutty Wren
6. The Saucy Sailor
7. Todos Los Bienes Del Mundo
8. The Downfall of Charing Cross
9. The Cropper Lads
10. Greenlander
11. The Awkward Recruit
12. I am The Song

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2009

Awkward is a great work - wkw in the middle there is nice and unusual. Second album in a row with Awkward in the title and a second folk album at that. Not very familiar with this one though - I think I bought it on a punt and found myself less than enamoured with it... lets see if that holds true.

This is an album of largely traditional songs, with just a handful of new compositions, which could go either way. I have to say though, I am pleasantly surprised by the jauntiness and pace of the opening track. The singing is not great, and the song is so-so, but there is an energy and vitality about the track that somehow makes it work anyway - at least until it loses all pace at which point it cedes the interest for a moment. Then it comes back with French (?) lyrics and so interest is restored just in time for the song to end.

It is New Years Eve, and I am trying to finish A before 2014 is out. It should be easy enough, just this and a 4 track EP from Alasdair Roberts to go. I hate this evening, so funnelling my energy into something constructive instead of simply falling into a funk and an early night is a good thing. It would be an easier sell if I were feeling more positive about either set of tunes, but still.

L'Homme Arme is an instrumental piece for the first 90 seconds, a very jaunty number again, then it comes in with a vocal that is quite demanding - spoken as much as sung and a mixture of French (I am sure this time!) and English. My recollections of this album did not have its pace and tempo so high and merry so perhaps I have simply created a false image of the disc and damned it unfairly in the past? No sooner typed, than disproven (again!). The pace drops off for a much more sombre number - and yet the delivery of the song does not really carry the melancholy of the lyric as the arrangement is relatively bright and the singing strident. The fiddles of sadness do arrive, along with a note of remorse in the voice, but only as the song is closing. All in all, this is pretty good so far.

Keeper of the Game is the first non-traditional song on the album, to go by my WMP metadata, but it is definitely in a traditional style, lyrically and in line structure. The arrangement is less so - the guitar part in particular stands out as modern. On the other hand, it somehow taps into a simple chic, almost Parisian in the use of accordion, and I like the result. I am not entirely off the mark with my memory though - for as much as I have enjoyed the first 4 tracks, Cutty Wren is the track that turned me off the album. I have nothing remotely positive to say about this song - badly sung, repetitive lyrically in a way that amplifies the effect of the poor singing and offensively arranged. It is so awful that it is entirely possible that this one song caused me to classify the whole album as un-listenable.

Thankfully it is now in my past (and already deleted) so perhaps the other songs can rescue the disc. That said, The Saucy Sailor does little for me and will be joining Cutty Wren in my cutting room. It is followed by a piece of Spanish origin which is sort of OK I guess, but does not offer much demand to stay in my library, so that is the middle third laid waste.

The Downfall of Charing Cross is more promising, though - a darker song, it still has an element of the spiky playing that characterised the opening two tracks and generated a good impression. It swells and contracts nicely in volume and in arrangement and whilst the edge on the accordion playing is sharper than I would like the song works, generates a decent atmosphere before giving way to something that really fits a view of a traditional English folk song with ample fiddling and communal singing. I can fully understand why some people would find The Cropper Lads and its ilk difficult to appreciate outside of live performance, but somehow it is this sort of folk that has captured my heart in the last decade despite me not moving in any social circles where it is really appreciated. That appreciation is not universal, and songs and tunes still need to be played well generally, but my chief interest was sparked by Spiers and Boden where that was guaranteed. There is enough in most of the tracks performed on this album to meet my approval, though none of them have really made me go "wow".

There are plenty of nice touches at start and end of this record - it is just a pity about that middle. I am currently listening to the title track and this is, I think, the best so far in terms of its construction - powerful, atmospheric, tuneful and catchy all at once, it feels like everything comes together synergistically in a way that does not quite hold true for the other songs on the album. The disc ends with a fiddle-and accordion based number, a sort of slow dance tune that gives way to a faster paced song just shy of two minutes in. The lift in pace improves it, for purely as a tune it was too slow to be interesting. The song itself is pretty dull but the evolution of the tune with it keeps a nice feel to the track as a whole and it is not an unsatisfying end to the album.

I have enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to, a quarter of it disappointed significantly and has been excised as a result but the remaining 9 tracks sit quite happily amongst the gamut of folk music in my collection.

Amalgamated Sons of Rest - Amalgamated Sons of Rest

Track List:

1. Maa Bonny Lad
2. My Donal
3. The Gypsy He-Witch
4. The Last House
5. Major March
6. Jennie Blackbird’s Blues

Running time: 35 minutes
Released: 2002

I bought this because I had admired a track or two from Scottish songwriter Alasdair Roberts, and this was a collaboration between him and two prominent American artists - Will Oldham (otherwise known as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, of whom more in this library) and Jason Molina - whose name I recognise but whose music I have never investigated for some reason.

There is a hidden track to pour scorn on (Wikipedia has a name for it, too - I Will Be Good) meaning the runtime of track 6 is 18 minutes - fully half the disc. Bleh. Still, I have not paid any attention to this E.P. for a long time so what is not dead air should make for interesting listening.

In truth I started this one once and stopped because the tempo of the record was too slow and low for my mood at the time. In starting again now, I worry the same may be true. I am trying to fit this in, having avoided it yesterday, before hastily arranged plans for later this evening. And I have not eaten yet. It is fairly minimalist stuff, to go by the opening. A pleasant enough tune (I get the feeling "pleasant" is the new "nice" of damning with faint praise), but nothing much to recommend it. Nice and short though, and when Maa Bonny Lad ends, My Donal begins. This has more of an atmosphere to it. It keeps the minimalism but there is an intent in the backing, a slight sense of the malign, which gives the tune some character and a stronger sense of self. Recording levels for the vocal are deliberately low, the backing distant. The whole volume is very low, but that creeping doom sense maintains the attention. I like this track. The first track was voiced by Roberts, the second I think by Oldham so by process of elimination the third different voice must be Molina, not that I can hear him much but the voice is not what I expected. Not sure what I expected.

That quietness is a definite feature, and not just because my speakers were turned way down.

It makes for an interesting listen... it feels more like listening to your mate strumming a guitar in the corner of the room rather than a record produced by professional musicians, but there is something in the construction of the melodies that gives them away. This is contemplative material, quiet-time appreciation; it sounds very simple but I think that there are elements here that are subtle enough to overlook, but which would change the tunes immeasurably if they were removed. I do not really like The Last House much, but it does illustrate that point.

The songs are better when they gain more sense of purpose. At times, with the quiet vocal they feel like they are drifting a bit and that allows interest to wander and wane. Here and there though the accompaniment ratchets up a notch and throws in something more demanding. Unfortunately from my perspective that is too infrequent to make me want to keep the album (more an E.P. really). My Donal is definitely worth keeping, it sat me up in a way that frankly I was not expecting but all of the other tunes have too many slow moments, weak points or both to hold my attention for long.

I am now into the interminable dead air before the hidden track (seriously why was this still around past the turn of the millennium?) and it occurs to me that I may not even hear the last tune start, so soft have been the recordings. It comes in at 15.20. This is 11 minutes and 40 seconds after the previous chord died, and leaves it less than 3 minutes to run. So bleeding pointless; a third of the disc is silence, the other two thirds is quiet on principle. Baffling.

Anyhow, a nice easy cut back - one good song to keep, 5 to ditch.