The Leaf Library – The World Is A Bell

 

North London band The Leaf Library offer drones, unique instrumental combinations, and a graceful melancholy on their second full-length LP.

I want to let you know about this album I've been enjoying recently but first, an apology. There's been a fewer posts on the blog recently for a number of reasons – a combination of fatigue due to the shorter days, increased workload at the day job, family illnesses (thankfully nothing serious) and a preoccupation with our woeful political climate have all contributed to me not finding as much time to write as I would like. That, and the fact that I'm a lazy git at heart!

Anyhow it's helped me decide on a renewed commitment to writing as my New Year's Resolution (again). I'm not expecting to be nominated for the Booker prize or anything like that but hopefully there will be some music I can help shine a light on. The last couple of years have been wonderful for left-of-centre music, and I expect 2020 will not disappoint either. One of this year's recent releases is The World Is A Bell, the second full-length album by North London band, The Leaf Library. Led by main songwriter and lyricist Matt Ashton, with musical contributions not only from the band's own line-up but also from their extended circle of collaborators, they have connections to other HD favourite acts such as Alison Cotton, The Left Outsides and The Cold Spells which boded well before I even got round to listening.

Maybe it's a reflection of the complicated world we live in but for whatever reason independent music has shifted away from big choruses and singalongs that were prevalent through '90s Britpop and into the era when The Libertines and their imitators ruled the roost. The units may not be shifting so much now but musically things are much more nuanced, more unique, subtle and ultimately more satisfying. The music released by The Leaf Library being a good example. It centres on ambiance, features drones, unexpected instrumental combinations and layered vocal harmonies. Don't expect ear-worms but do expect a listening experience that will shape or enhance moods. It's a record of slowly permeating subtle charm.

Listening to album opener 'In Doors And Out Through Windows' instills in me that beautifully detached feeling I get when visiting an unfamiliar city and wandering through its centre while shops and markets are getting themselves ready for the working day. With a meditative instrumental bed of piano, hand-held percussion, brass and xylophone it sets the tone for what is to follow. Lyrical references to August moons and white chalk tie the track to seasons and landscape and are ambiguous enough for the listener to find in them a meaning for themselves.

'Hissing Waves' further propels you into this head-space, and once you settle in and are willing to be taken further on the journey that the band have created you'll find gentle electronic pulses, found sounds, beautiful string arrangements, synth drones and a shared musical mindset that centres on mood and texture. It's tempting to link The Leaf Library in with the kind of Hauntological records released by labels such as Clay Pipe and Ghost Box. The band name fits right in with that after all. But there's something more contemporary and forward looking going on here. It's not the past that being ruminated on, more so the eternal, and the open-ended possibilities of what could be. In a sense they've created the musical equivalent of early morning half-light.

The band cite the likes of Stereolab, Low, Bark Psychosis, Yo La Tengo, Seefeel, Julia Holter and Robert Kirby on their press release. Fans of those acts will find much to like here, as will those of Jane Weaver, Modern Nature, and anyone with a belief in Englishness as something intangible but deeper and kinder than its current small-minded nationalist form. Sorry to end this on a little bit of politics, just sometimes you need to get stuff off your chest. Suffice to say that this record is one of many this year that has helped maintain my faith in what our tiny island has to offer. Do yourself a favour - turn the telly and the phone off, put your headphones on and lose yourself in this album's calming melancholy.

Click here for The Leaf Library's website.

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Click here for WIAIWYA Records.

Jack Hayter – Abbey Wood

Intimate, poetical hinterland folk.

Gare du Nord Records seem to be developing a niche for albums that speak quietly and intimately about real places, people and history. And about change. The label released the debut LP by The Cold Spells earlier this year, (a fabulous record by my reckoning), and are set to release another top-notch album of South East English folk, this time by Jack Hayter (Ex-Hefner, Dollboy).

Half sung, half spoken and backed by small acoustic ensembles, it's his first solo album in 15 years so perhaps no surprise I'd not stumbled across his music before. That said he's been active musically as a member of Papernut Cambridge, as well as performing and recording with former Hefner frontman Darren Hayman. Like flowers blossoming in a forgotten railway siding this twelve song collection highlights the hinterlands and examines small moments and marginalised lives (both geographically and socially). Yet all the time bursts with heartening empathy.

Abbey Wood is an area of South East London currently experiencing the mixed blessing of improved transport links and ensuing gentrification. A Crossrail link will will soon mean it's only 11 minutes away from Canary Wharf. But it's not this shiny, steel and glass version which Hayter eulogises. His poetical songs speak of an older, semi-forgotten Abbey Wood. Having spent time living in an abandoned children's home in the area he's witnessed changes that sweep aside history and its impeding emotional associations. Hayter's eye for detail and sharp turn of phrase helps make the album a lyrically rich portrait of a specific place, sepia tinted yet poetically alive. Take 'Fanny On The Hill' for example, an ode to selling knock-off meat in a now-closed Bexley pub. With each listen a different sentence catches the ear. Like the best literature, it's a slow reveal but worth the investment.

Aside from the songs centred on Abbey Wood there are wider historical and war-torn stories illuminated from personal perspectives, such as 'Bendigo' and 'Arandora Star' where the stories of both Australian WWI conscripts and the sunk British warship are rescued from cold factual history and retold with a more human and ultimately more resonant perspective. The album closes with a second version of 'Arandora Star' read in Italian by Hayter's friend Sylvia De.

Rooted as most of the songs and stories are in one postcode, there's a wider emotional resonance at play here. With our cities changing at a seemingly ever faster and sometimes alarming pace, simple remembrance is more precious and important than ever before. We should be thankful that an artist as skillful as Jack Hayter can help us in this much needed act.

Click here for more on Jack Hayter.

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The Hardy Tree - Through Passages Of Time

(This review first appeared in issue #63 of Shindig! magazine.)

Clay Pipe Music LP

As London town continues to morph ever more rapidly into structures of steel and glass, the ghosts and echoes of its past are still there for those prepared to listen. That's the thinking behind this album from Clay Pipe Music's founder Frances Castle. With a palette of Mellotron, vibes, sequenced Moogs and viola courtesy of The Left Outsides' Alison Cotton, The Hardy Tree paint a musical elegy to the Smoke's lost landmarks, both big and small.

Interspersed with recordings of market street hawkers, running water, church bells, creaking doors and the sound of building work, this collection of instrumental pieces is uniquely affecting and owes a lot to music made for music for schools and colleges TV programmes in the 1970s. Imagine Nick Drake trying his hand at strange, spooky electronica. Hauntological library music that will have you falling in love with the city and its history all over again. 

Trimdon Grange Explosion - Trimdon Grange Explosion

North-east London folk collective releases full-length debut LP. And it's very good!

One album I've been listening to a lot recently is the self-titled debut by Trimdon Grange Explosion. It's the first release on their own Borley Rectory imprint. The London-based quartet make English folk-rock in the style of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Pentangle et al. And they do it very well, mixing their own compositions alongside well known traditional songs such as 'Poor Wayfaring Stranger'. The band's use of rock dynamics, swells and repetition owe much to the work of Velvet Underground. Plenty of I-IV chord shifts and John Cale-style viola drone.

It comes as no surprise to learn then that despite this being their debut long-player, the band members have a history and a pedigree. All four were previously members of The Eighteenth Day Of May, and viola player Alison and bassist Mark also perform as a duo (The Left Outsides). The album is available as a CDR with A5 booklet and a limited edition cassette. Don't hang about though as according to their social media it's selling pretty quick!

Trimdon Grange Explosion are -

Alison Cotton (viola/vocals)
Ben Phillipson (guitar/vocals)
Mark Nicholas (bass)
Karl Sabino (drums)

Click here for Trimdon Grange Explosion on Twitter.

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