The Beautiful & the Actual - Rosie Hood

Track list:

1. Lover's Ghost
2. A Furlong of Flight
3. William's Sweetheart
4. Lord Lovel
5. Dorothy Lawrence
6. Baker's Oven
7. The Little Blind Girl
8. The Red Herring
9. Adrift, Adrift
10. The Hills of Kandahar
11. The Cruel Mother
12. Undaunted Female

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2017

This is a bit of an unknown, a new release I picked up sound unheard because folk singer with good reviews. An old fashioned punt in the dark in an era when that really isn't necessary. This is a first listen, to boot so this listen is unlikely to be definitive.

The opening sound is a low reverberating thrum, a dark contrast to Hood's light, bright voice that chimes over it. It is a good test of the new speaker I have attached for this one - less practical as it has no independent volume dial (and adjusting the PC volume isn't as "one-touch") - since my previous one was gunked up and wouldn't clean up nicely. The song is all here; underneath the vocal are an array of low key background sounds rather than a clear tune. The effect is nice, and I find the vocal style a bit reminiscent of the more interesting side of Lucy Ward. A decent beginning.

I had hoped to complete more listens in June, whilst on holiday, but issues with getting reliable power in meant my downtime was spent reading instead. Since I have been back I have been a little too pulled in multiple directions to get to this until now. As blind punts go, this one feels like it might pay out, as the second track - a more recognisable tune here - continues to exhibit a very engaging voice. There is a nice simplicity to it. We are firmly in quintessential folk sounds now, as a squeezebox takes up the lead on William's Sweetheart. Here the delivery of the lyric is tighter, clipped a bit, less floating.

There is, then, a versatility on display here; I find I rather like it. This applies to the music as well as the voice as the arrangements to the first 3 or 4 tracks are distinct and use different instruments and forms. Of this first third of the album, Lord Lovel is the least enjoyable by far; here there is something about the voices that doesn't quite gel with me. Hard to put my finger on what and why though. Happily it seems to be a brief misstep as a staccato string base hums under a more impressive vocal on the next track. There is a vibrancy to this that is really impressive - yet I find myself wondering at the same time how much I would really want to listen to it. I hear, and I appreciate, but I wonder about how repeatable that appreciation is. I think that is because some of these are quite stark, raw and open and so the songs can appear challenging.

Rosie Hood can really sing though. Really, really sing. More than just holding the tune, the timing and the expression in her delivery is gorgeous on The Little Blind Girl where (for I think the third time on the disc) she is really carrying everything on her as the accompaniment is almost an afterthought. The difference in accent aside, I also hear echoes of Eliza Carthy here, which is no bad thing, though I think Hood's voice is a little smaller and less forthright than Carthy's they share some rhythmic approaches. I would also call Hood a more musical singer - so not as good in some ways, better in others.

The variation in arrangements and styles seem to have normalised over the course of the disc, it feels slightly more consistent as it goes on, converging on more traditional folk structures, even as it goes off piste subject wise with a song about soldiers in Afghanistan. Of course, I spoke too soon; the very next track returns to a cappella, two voices alone. Nicely executed, but not at all an easy song to listen to. We then close with a return to voice over staccato bass. This form is probably my take home from the album, a nice stripped back way to present the songs - albeit one that I think you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate. I am not quite there by the end of this listen, not as much as I was at the start of it anyway. That might be the time, the oppressive humidity as even with the house opened up all day the thermostat reads 26 plus and the air is muggy and close.

Silence has fallen as that final track concluded. I found this a striking collection, one I am very glad to have heard but which I wonder about how often I would want to hear it again.

Adelphi has to Fly - Lucy Ward

Track list:

1. The Fairy Boy
2. Alice In The Bacon Box
3. Maids When You're Young
4. Death (Rock Me To Sleep)
5. The Unfortunate Lass
6. Julia
7. The Two Sisters
8. Adelphi
9. F For Love
10. A Stitch In Time
11. Bricks & Love

Running time: 46 minutes
Released: 2011

So this is a recent purchase but not a new disc. It sneaks in the midst of the Ben Folds-a-thon (although its hard to really see it as that given the slow progress in getting through it) by virtue of being an A. I decided to pick this up recently because I needed a make-weight on an order to qualify for free shipping and I had picked up and seen promise in Silent Flame - which I bought following one of the Folk Awards albums on which she was showcased.

I am acutely aware that I have not made it to these pages for a long time - over 2 weeks now. Things have been busy between evening plans and the stresses of buying a new car. That all done with for the time being, maybe I will return to a more consistent posting schedule... but enough excuses, time to get listening!

I have been through this a few times on the commute (prior to the car change) so it is not a blind listen of a new purchase. However it is probably the first time I will hear it clearly, with no banging exhaust to cover it up. The Fairy Boy has a very soft backing that I don't think I had picked up previously, for example - a few sparse piano notes, a lightly droning string or organ of some kind, the latter so faint I really can't tell what it is. I like the song more like this - on a quiet evening at the end of a busy day. The additional structure works nicely to support Ward's voice, which has real potential even if it does not always deliver. There are hints of Kate Rusby in her tones and that is an apt comparison for the second track, which has a gentle roll to it that could be a Rusby song. Not so accomplished in performance, not trained and reinforced through years of grooving as Rusby though, but a decent showing which again, restored by the lack of growling engine noise, is much better than my first impressions.

This third song I don't like much. It has been a bit of an earworm for me in the last fortnight, most annoyingly so as it is one of those songs which employs too much nonsense in place of proper lyrics. I also don't much like the subject matter of what lyrics there are. It's a bloody catchy tune, but the charm is completely lost by the words that go with it. It also dominates my mental impression of the album so much that the next track feels unfamiliar, not heard before, even though I don't think I skipped a one over three journeys.

Death is a dark subject for a song given the subtitle implies lullaby. It isn't of course, a lullaby I mean. Actually its a pretty nice piece - there is an edge to it, a tone that sets it apart from the fare that has been before. The darkness is all in the guitar; the vocal performance does not carry such the same menace or, to be honest, interest. Ward was, I think, very young when this was released, and I think the lack of consistency is probably more a factor of inexperience than anything else. Yet at times her delivery is very mature, studied and impressive.

I am getting goosebumps listening to The Unfortunate Lass, though this is the side effect of bare arms on an evening where the warmth is starting to fade more than a reaction to the song. It is a slow number, a maudlin one, but it is a strong performance, even as the empty arrangement gives her plenty of chance to mess things up. The next piece tells a story that on the face of it tells of a young same-sex relationship, but maybe I am assuming the gender of the teller based on that of the singer (and writer, since this is a Ward original). If so, its a significant subject to take on, and personally I don't think that the song does it justice in a couple of ways. First I think there are some weaknesses in the structure of the writing and secondly I feel the performance is lacking. Where Ward can be strident, bold, here there is a fallibility in the voice which might be appropriate and "in character" for the song, but actually takes away from the experience to my ear.

Two Sisters is a more immediately enjoyable piece. The staccato playing here creates a crucible that sets Ward's singing on fire, the timbres of her voice really gelling with it in the early part of the track. It wavers a bit as the song progresses though, her voice flying higher and losing a bit of the connection with the arrangement and the dark subject matter. There is some really nice build/drop off in the playing here though, despite most of it amounting to repetition of the same loop it sets a fantastic tone. I think this is probably the best track on the album.

In to the last few now, and the song from which the album takes its title is about as uninteresting as anything here - it wanders all over the place, especially in the vocal, whilst the dominant strains of the playing are just... dull. Some of the writing is stretching it, too; it really surprises me that this prompted the title, but still. F for Love is deeply cynical, a darker view of the world than even I can normally conjure - and yet it is paired with a really light, soft-touch piano. It is an odd contrast and one that does not really work for me. I just glanced at the track lengths in WMP and I am surprised that most of the songs top 4 minutes in length because actually none of them really feel like they have that much to them in terms of heft and weight of lyric. I don't mean that as a criticism of the writing (there are points I might make there if I were reviewing), but as an observation that the pieces fly by quicker than expected.

A Stitch In Time is... ugh. A domestic violence story, it's not nice to start with and then answers violence with violence. It has a good outcome for those involved though, somehow. It is also a cappella and not great. At times Ward sounds like she's stuffed up with a cold. It is a memorable track but not a pleasant one.

We close with a more musical tune, but another one that feels light, empty. Missing something. I can see it being a pretty (if sad) song when watched live but on record it gives the impression that things don't quite line up. And just like that it is over and the room falls silent save for my laptop fan.

Two weeks, one post. Must do better. As for the album, there is more to it than I thought, but a lot of tracks, too, that feel weak. It is pretty obviously a debut, more raw and flawed than Single Flame I think. Identifying what to keep and what to chuck now, it may get gutted but not because everything that goes is bad, more that its weaker than similar stuff I have. Still, definitely some keepers too.