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Acoustic Album/EP Reviews Cabaret Folk Music Folk Pop Irish Mixed Genre

Emma Langford- “Sowing Acorns” – A Review

A fun album that will defy attempts to hold it down in one place. Well arranged and with some seriously confident creations, this disc hints at a continued bright future for Langford.

Release Date: September 2020

It’s been a long time coming, but we have finally got around to reviewing the second album by the characterful, nu-folk joy of a musician that is Emma Langford. Nu-Folk you ask? 

Well Nu-Folk can be all sorts including songs about love, teenage issues to new worries about the world and environment, and all of it will contain a trapping or more of folk music within it. It might be something with a diy acoustic vibe, a grandiose trumpet/some-kind-of-brass solo or some incredibly shiny banjos and usually it is all held together without any historical theme or mention of tradespeople, but something different that speaks to a modern sadness or joy.

This “different” thing is not always what we are personally interested in, but before you expertly flatten your cap to go and find a song about ploughing, take pause. When done well,  Nu-Folk, like all music, is a wonder to behold. When jazz hits folk in a way that creates that yesteryear feeling, when the lyrics are tightly wound and chosen and each word is strung and tuned more daring and precise than the last, then you can go back to your porridge and everything in the world is still right. It is safe to say that Langford has got things right here with a strong sophmore entry.

Irish-born Langford has made strides in recent years. She has been named Best Emerging Folk Artist by Irish national broadcaster, RTÉ Radio 1, and likewise was shortlisted as the Best Folk Singer in the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards of  2020. Before these awards and the phenomenon of Covid, Langford found many opportunities to tour away from  Limerick, with her sound being  over Europe in Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and others. She must be as joyous as a raffle winner; the one who is making her strides to the raffle table to choose and collect the one good remaining prize (which is usually a suspect looking bottle of wine).

Listening to the CD the first thing that strikes you is the contrast between the songs here. Like a honey badger fighting a mole snake, it is a beast of a CD with different flourishes and movements that it showcases to be able to make success on it’s own terms. There are tracks that are a showcase of a folk-talent bonny and bright, but then you have the other genres mixed here with their colours coming together delightfully like a skittle milkshake (though brush your teeth before and after this album please). This being said, there is nothing here that is over-sentimental or sickly sweet (or as disagreeable as the lime skittles).

“The Winding Way down to Kells Bay” is a light-touch, joy-filled handshake of a song that splashes and sprays seawater over the rocks of the sunny beach you are walking down. This could be a folk staple with Langford’s voice being the engine that is in James Bond’s Aston Martin compared to a modern supercar. She isn’t racing you along so you aren’t getting a battering in the ribs, but rather you get to see the scene in the stately drive, see the landscape and feel the land. Much like the foam of the sea it is breezy and casual yet quintessentially and seriously the folk you are looking for .

The album opener “BirdSong” is a striking choral chant that thuds and scraps it’s way onto the scene with it’s rolling shockwaves of confidence and defiant tone. Demanding attention, it’s lyric “Til your eyes find me I’m strong as my bones” is pretty much a spell of power harkening to all women whose strength of mind and body is not unlike a basalt carving. Moved and formed by a volcanic heart of compassion and love, it portrays a grit and determination in it’s stalwart composition and steady pace. Contemplating the weakness in pairing with another person, the song itself repeats and builds, many voices come in and it’s musical layers come together in an almost spiritually clean manner. Simple enough in construction but the devil is in the detail, it shines like stars in the night cloak of the sky. 

Goodbye Hawaii is probably our favourite track on the album. Definitely having it’s mirror focused on the yesteryear here is a song with a vintage, jazz sea-sprayed quality combined with buzz words from Grey’s Anatomy. Undeniably rosy-cheeked and spirited, it is interspersed with lyrics that call on Oxytocin and heart muscle as if they were volleyball buddies in Miami. Perhaps it is the sound of Hannibal having a holiday in the Bahamas or Dexter on a city break? Whatever the intention, gruesome interlude or cute fact-check on anatomy it’s a visceral description of what being heart-broken is like and the associated emotional pain that is felt from being left. Langford croons incredibly well amongst the jangly percussion. Langford’s classy image, the sound of suburbia and a clear looking love to this island you get the impression that there was a lot of fun to be had here.  

You Are Not Mine (This Song Isn’t About You, You Lying Bollix) is another good swinging time with punchy, soft drums and gentle strums in between a purposeful, yet meandering heady mix that seems an awful lot like those complex interactions at wedding receptions. It is the sound of history as you share a space with an old relationship, that weird spark of energy and familiarity that grabs your heart until your head overrides. Hopefully you realise that little heist that is going on is a sequel to the tune of Oceans 12, and is probably not a good idea. A great track to finish the album. 

There is a lot else here to enjoy such as the breathy, intimate questioning of “Free to Fall” in it’s acoustic simplicity, the anthemic and placard raising sensibilities of the title track, or the bright, snappy retro Angel Delight of a dessert that is “Ready-O”.  Langford moves through the pages of history stopping at the heart-felt meadow, the cosmopolitan champagne bar, and wind-swept beaches like a bee collecting the nectar of music. As she goes she collects what she needs to make a confident, whimsy-filled album brimming at the edges with joy and talent. The cabaret has started, everyone start your cheers.

“Sowing Acorns” is available on Bandcamp directly from the artist, at https://emmalangfordmusic.bandcamp.com/album/sowing-acorns

For more information about the artist, go to her page here.

— I do not claim ownership or copyright of any pictures used in this post. If I have not identified your work and you want your photos credited then please contact us at reviewer@folk-phenomena.co.uk

Categories
Album/EP Reviews British Cabaret Energetic Folk Music Folk Stories Historical Myths Trad Covers

Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman – Personae (2018) Album Review

“Sharp, witty and accomplished there is a class to Roberts & Lakeman’s new album that cannot be measured on any known scientific apparatus”

Album: Personae

Producer: Sean Lakeman

Tracks: 10

Iscream Music Records (2018)

Released 9th March 2018

Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman are indeed a famous duo. Maybe the best known in folk circles due to the two well-deserved wins for “Best Duo” at the Radio 2 Folk Awards. People always presume that the difficulty in fame and music is in the ascent, but surely Lords and Ladies have the added pressure of walking their parapets safely once they have been built. Roberts and Lakeman haven’t  installed a hand rail on their high wall though to keep them safe however. They are still dancing, leaning over the outcrop, shouting to the crowd and having a regal ball in plain sight. Their new, fifth album “Personae” is an album of energy showing no lack of original ideas, adventure or showmanship in the realm of fantastical stories.

It all starts with the cover photograph (by Niki Bidgood) which is either an otherworldly rodeo or Roberts is performing a superhero feat of strength with her hips. It is warmly baffling, but in the best possible way. Perhaps as the album is called “personae” it is in the spirit of one “reining” in their outward appearance. The whole scene is like a painting where your eyes cannot be trusted- here you wonder if it is sea or land, it could be either. Whatever the intent, there is a lot of fun to be had here and this definitely spills over to the album. It spills over despite any attempt to keep it contained like a rainbow bucket filled with sparkles.

The CD starts with a belting version of Child Ballad 265, “The Knight’s Ghost”. The duo’s rendition makes it rather a favourite for ourselves. We love traditional and maintaining the way things have been; here the song isn’t just elaborated, it is upgraded.  Like most ballads the advice of the story inside is of mixed quality. It does remind how grief can make us take rash actions (as the main subject begins revenge against those that she thinks have done her husband harm) though maybe in everyday life we cannot rely on our late partner’s ghost pointing out our errors.  For an opener on an album it is a vivacious interpretation that benefits from clear guitar work and emotive, nuanced vocals. It is quite a powerhouse. Sam Kelly’s additional vocals are characterful and fitting. Overall when thinking of the track, going back to the comparison rodeos, this song is much like that the bucking animal who sprints out at the fire of the gun, it bucks and hops and is determined and fierce. A great opener.

Track 3 “Tribute of Hands” is an original fast-paced number that brings some more of the myth to the table. Inspired by the story of the founding of Antwerp the duo have managed to create something as bloodthirsty and grim as any song from the folk song canon, and it fits especially well. Along other tracks, It forms a  backbone of tracks about history; legends with a slight fairytale kick and mischievous attitude that give the CD a fantastical anchor. The woodwind in the middle ramps up the mystery and wonder, it is as much of the song as dry ice is in a Prince music video. It all works very well as it speeds along exuding charm. We need more fantastical stories of this kind being brought to life, though this might mean I would stop reading fairytales.

“The Street of the Cats Who Dance” is our favourite of the quintessential piano-led ballads on the album. At first we thought the song might refer to Istanbul which I believe is heavily linked with cats, but the song actually refers to St. Malo, a town in France. In history the governors had the idea of unleashing hungry dogs at night to enforce a curfew on wrongdoers. Night time curfews and nightwalking in history are fascinating reading (I have a great book to recommend on this), but this aside the cats are dancing because the dogs were eventually banned from being used in this way following a particularly gruesome death. The song is incredibly well mixed, Lakeman has created some good harmonies of Roberts’ voice which shines throughout. The song has stirrings of early Tori Amos which, in my opinion,  always gets the senses going. This is no Amos tribute though, it moves it’s feet to it’s own beat. It is hard to imagine who else would have the presence to take this song on in the future, but for now this is the least of our concerns.

 

There are many other fine tracks on the album. The vaudeville, “poison club” exemplifies the mischievousness, playful nature of two folk artists quite perfectly listing some of the best ways substances to have fun to (or die from). Their cover of Sandy Denny’s “Solo” is pure beautiful intention, and “Old, Old, Old” (about a Seychelles tortoise) could be part of a growing tradition of the duo pointing out remarkable creatures  in the world around us. Throughout Lakeman doesn’t miss a beat in the instrumentation. It is a credit to his mixing that the weapon of choice on whatever song he is performing on sounds more like a pumped-up army as opposed to a single man, the depth across the disc even on more poignant numbers like “Independence” is breathtaking.

We cannot fault this album. The disc is thoroughly entertaining diving right in and waving to the crowd; it is a work that will be spinning in our music player for periods of time not yet anticipated. For any sci-fi fans it is fairytale in a similar way to Matt Smith’s run on Doctor Who with it’s kind of cool, slightly unusual but prestigious appearance.

Another way to understand the value of this album is to imagine that in the depths of Winter you were cold and someone recommended you buy this disc because it would keep you warm. You might don your pickaxe and hard hat to go down the mine in preparation for finding some coal, but what you would find  instead is a cave of diamonds from floor to ceiling that shine in the dim amber light of your torch. Take the bag that is your heart and fill it to the top.

Which is just as well because energy prices are going through the roof.

“Personae” is best ordered direct from Roberts & Lakeman at: https://www.kathrynrobertsandseanlakeman.com/

My other half recently interviewed the duo, find out their favourite poisons here, http://www.lastnightidreamtof.co.uk/music/kathryn-roberts-and-sean-lakeman-interview/

(I do not claim ownership of pictures and media referenced in this article, they belong to their respective holders).