Afterglow - Jon Boden

Track list:

1. Moths in the Gas Light
2. Afterglow
3. Bee Sting
4. Wrong Side of Town
5. Fires of Midnight
6. All the Stars are Coming Out Tonight
7. Dancing in the Ruin
8. Burning Streets
9. Yellow Lights
10. Aubade

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2017

New release time. Jon Boden's first solo release after the end of Bellowhead is a return to the apocalyptic visions of his previous effort, Songs From the Floodplain, which I loved. I am catching his tour next month (alas not at a full band show) but picked this based on a prompt from the mailing list. This is a first listen so not likely to represent a final opinion.

The first surprise is the lushness of the sound, it's filled in. The vocal doesn't necessarily have the space it needs to create the picture the album sleeve suggests, and the wind instruments in the bridge feel out of place. It is not immediately a winner, then, but I suspect it might grow on me.

Sunday afternoon, this my penultimate thing to do before the weekend (and my week off) is out. The other is a stack of ironing. Joy. It's been a productive week, but I don't really feel like I've had a break because of that. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't, because if I'd taken the full stop I needed then I'd have still been in a terrific mess and feeling bad about not having done anything. Oh well; tomorrow morning is sorting through a week's worth of unanswered mail and figuring out what changed whilst I was out. In light of that I could do with something a bit more immediately positive or energetic than this. Jon Boden is a fantastic performer, very charismatic on stage, but so far that charisma is lacking in the recording.  The title track is pedestrian, dull rhythm leading to a staid overall effect. I hope this is not representative.

The drudgery is brightened a bit by the light guitar work on Bee Sting, but there is still no sense of pace or rhythm in the piece, even when the drums come to the fore, it's more emphasising the stop of the flow rather than providing positive impetus. Sure, not everything needs to be quick, pacy, intense, but the sell on this album is meant to to be big screen, not back room. It isn't working on that score. The imagery not supported by the sound; the concept not realised as well as it was before.

Oh, this is a richer sound. Space is occupied, arrangements more intricate, Bellowhead band mates invited to play a part in building a busier tapestry, but that extra "stuff" is not employed as effectively as it could be. The sense of identity projected by Afterglow is more after-party... come down, soft and easy. I am not picking out the lyrics clearly whilst I am tapping away here, but I don't get the sense of a vivid and lively world from these tracks.  It feels all very... safe?

All the Stars are Coming Out Tonight injects a bit more of a rhythm but whilst this is a crescendo of sorts, it manifests with all the ambition of background noise. The tune is staid, predictable. So whilst we gain a bit of urgency and, towards the end of the track, some more distinctive delivery from Boden's vocal, that is in service to an uninspiring song.

I am better disposed to Dancing in the Ruin, but... from my point of view the same concept was carried off with more gravitas on Songs from the Floodplain's Dancing in the Factory, where the sense of ruin and life in a world amongst the ruins was conveyed far more effectively. So what appears to be the strongest song thus far is weaker than a previous offering. This tune then devolves into an out-of-place instrumental outro.

I might just be in the wrong mood for this. Burning Streets brings a sense of urgency and stridency to the party but I bounce off the arrangement pretty hard. This is the first time that the apocalyptic vision really feels like it belongs, but the song itself leaves me cold. This is followed by some tension... a slow, dangerous tension, rather than a knife-edge or action-pumping tension. Yellow Lights has the most compelling marriage of theme and execution on the album. I wish this was saying more than it is. Having said that, it is not a particularly enjoyable song musically speaking. The vocal is great, and the arrangement does support it, but it doesn't draw you in. It is more keeping you at arms' length, wary. Apt, perhaps, but not the best of selling points. That said, the track's 7 minutes slide by easily enough.

Suddenly we reach the end. Aubade has a more immediate relationship with the folk roots and past work of the performer, or so it seems to me. This track is approachable, familiar, and whilst not the strongest composition Jon Boden will ever pen it remembers to a) make his voice the star and b) deliver on basic principles. It ends up as possibly my favourite track on the album because it remembers to cover the key points first, though the closing with birdsong is a little... off. Overall I find myself very disappointed. The disappointment is keen, because I so loved his Floodplain dystopia, and I had high hopes for another similar vision. I will give it more of a chance to grow on me - a chance albums from other performers whose other work I admired less may not get - but I can't see this becoming a favourite.

Child Ballads - Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer

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.

Burlesque - Bellowhead

Track list:

1. Rigs Of The Time
2. Jordan
3. Across The Line
4. London Town
5. Sloe Gin
6. Courting Too Slow
7. Flash Company
8. Hopkinson's Favourite
9. One May Morning Early
10. The Outlandish Knight
11. Frogs' Legs and Dragons' Teeth
12. Fire Marengo
13. Death And The Lady

Running time: 60 minutes
Released: 2006

This album kicked off a little bit of an obsession. I have already had course to write about (the now sadly no-more) Bellowhead on these pages and it was here that my infatuation with their music and shows began. Well, sort of. Picking this up was not my first exposure - tracks from E.P.Onymous came up on a LastFM station I picked one time - but it is the point at which interest became adoration. It is hard to imagine that is 10 years ago now.  I don't listen to Burlesque much so I can't in good conscience tag it a favourite; some tunes here are overdone through a decade of live performance, though others remain fresh. Some are just better done by Spiers & Boden as a duo. But this album does also contain on of my favourite tracks, one that I only got to see live once in years of regular gig-going. Now it is time to revisit all of it.

It is a little bit of an odd start. Chaotic, like a warm up, before Jon Boden's voice kicks in. The arrangement of our 11 piece has a circus-like air to it, with Boden the ringmaster. I haven't heard Rigs of the Time for an age, but it does rather encapsulate Bellowhead in a nutshell. Strong, charismatic vocal performance backed by a rich and varied set of skills an personality in the playing. Today is my last full day of holiday; off to the seaside for a final swim later, then lunch by the beach and a drink in one of my favourite spots. Tomorrow I fly home, and in 50 hours I will be back at work. I'd say 48, but I have to account for the 2 hour time difference.

Jordan was a live staple until the end, not an every gig number, but not far off. Here, on record, there is a much stronger presence for Rachel McShane, the only lady in the group, who is clearly audible alongside Boden's commanding tones. Both have solo works to appear on this project before it is done. This song is a striking number, strident and powerful; McShane was never this audible in concert though - possibly because the whole line up gave it a bit more welly live. Now we hit Across the Line, arranged by drummer Pete Flood (also has a solo album to come); this song I love to bits - there's a real haunting theme of loss in the main melody that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. This has none of the bombast of the two prior tracks, much more of an emotional appeal rather than a tub-thumping one.

The recording sounds flatter than in my memory; I think I cling tightly to the one time I saw them play it - in Cheltenham a few years back - and I am sure the arrangement evolved a bit between recording and then. The essence of the song is the same though and it... is ruined by some fucker with a loudspeaker driving by outside; no idea what that is about. I kid - the song isn't ruined, but the sanctity of my listen is disturbed by that and the resultant dogs barking (so many dogs and feral cats here it is unbelievable; screeching and barking at all hours).

Back to a live favourite now. I wont be doing the "actions" whilst listening and typing, but my muscles do reflexively want to point up and down in time with the chorus. The peppy pace and melodic tune are much more noticeable on record as the focus in a live crowd is all on the lyrics and the bolder, brassier pronouncements in the arrangement. Here I am noticing subtleties in the playing that are completely lost at gigs. Boden doesn't hold that one note for an impossible time on the album version either. After one live tune that stayed fresh, on to one that really didn't. I think I have vented about Sloe Gin on one of the live album discs (here or here) so I am not going to do so again, but rather let it slide by without comment, save to say that it is annoying me a little less than I expected.

Right, that over with, onwards.

Courting too Slow is, well... a little too slow. I have never really been a fan of it for that reason - whether Bellowhead or Spiers & Boden (as on Bellow, with bonus anti-Sloe Gin feeling). There may be a bit of too close to the truth to it, too - not literally but figuratively. I actually think, hearing it here, that I was off the mark with my comments in the Bellow post; the arrangement here is better than I remembered but it is largely still forgettable. We have dived into a slow patch, because Flash Company also has no pace to it. It begins with Boden warbling over chaotic percussion, and sporadic interventions from the wider band. It is a sonic mess, as it only really picks up a proper (vaudeville-inspired) tune after 2 of the 3 minutes. I just find it dull. Thankfully those cobwebs are blown away by Hopkinson's Favourite, a much more energetic number.

I keep getting this one and Fire Marengo (to come later) mixed up in my mind despite this being an instrumental, and Fire Marengo the "disco sea shanty" (as per live introductions). Actually Hopkinson's is not a favourite; it does well to reset expectation after two stately songs and it has its moments, but on record it is a little flat and repetitive until the 2:40 mark where we get the first and bassy exclamation. It is a much better track live.

One May Morning Early is a light-touch melody, high harmony song. It is one that I have overlooked, clearly. I really like the way they intertwine the various voices here. Boden, McShane and Paul Sartin are all very clearly audible in different places, and I am sure more of the ensemble are involved too. I find myself really liking it despite the slow pace; a nice surprise. We then dive into another number from Spiers & Boden's stable (and again discussed under Bellow). Here it is given a long-ish intro before the striking fiddle staccato kicks us in. The major plus point here over the duo version is the puff of the horns in the bass; the voice is actually too quiet though - weird that Boden wouldn't still be the loudest thing on the recording. He sounds distant, behind glass here. I think on balance that is probably the biggest reason I prefer the Bellow recording; that and the sheer impressiveness of making that much sound from two guys. Here, actually, there are significant portions of the song which get stripped back to a similar point, too - and that strikes me as a shame, not fully employing the resources to the task.

Just like I couldn't point and type, nor can I bounce up and down. Last encore familiarity. Far less engaging on record, but I can't hear it without picturing the antics of the band on stage. I am talking, of course, about Frogs Legs and Dragon's Teeth. It feels a little odd to get this in the middle of the disc. Wow, I am mistyping every other word at the moment. Never has a backspace key seen such regular use. Fingers too fast for my brain or vice versa. The tunes are still enjoyable, but it is largely that live association that is so embedded in my psyche that keeps them so; the horns that close it seem brighter and sharper than live though, as a final odd touch, then we're into disco territory.

The drums on Fire Marengo sound like handclaps in places, so much that I wonder whether they didn't record a clap track; they must have done. This song sees Boden in true demagogue mode, not contributing to most of the chorus lines - leaving his lackeys to do that. You can hear the strut in his voice, and it is marvelous. The man is such a performer, unquestionably the best I have ever seen for sheer charisma, force of personality and commanding a stage in any discipline. It's really hard to judge cross-style things; the strongest stage acting performance I have seen was Mark Strong in Under the Bridge where he absolutely killed it, but I would happily back Jon Boden in a head to head for charisma. My musical bias, perhaps, but the man is a born performer.

The final number (my, the hour has gone fast) is Death and the Lady, which sees McShane sharing vocals again. I love how their voices wind around each other - her more delicate and clearly northern tones offsetting his bolder ones. I actually find the arrangement here great. The tune is a very stately one (I have other versions) but they create space in the top end to explore and add oodles of interest. The wandering trumpet is the star here though. When they pick up the pace with the drums but maintain the plod of the accordion playing the standard pace, it falls apart a little. Here the two-speed sound really doesn't work for me. Thankfully it is but a small part of the tune, which as a whole is far, far more interesting than I remembered. Suddenly it is done, and I am left with the task of hitting publish, then going back through old posts to find references to this - of which there are a few.