Stick In The Wheel - Against The Loathsome Beyond

Ancient and modern forces meet for a richly elegiac take on English folk.

As usual over winter I've ended up with a backlog of music to write about. Christmas, the usual bouts of family illness, work commitments and the shorter hours of daylight and resulting tiredness always seem to conspire against me. The result is less time and energy to devote to writing. So first an apology to the amazing musicians and labels that have sent me music recently. I have however had lots of great albums to listen to and absorb, this release by Stick In The Wheel being one brilliant example.

It's the band's second mixtape release, following on from 2018's This and The Memory of This. These mixtape releases are an opportunity for the core duo of Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter (EAN) to collaborate with guest players, either using their own material as a starting point, or remixing and adding to music created by the guest musicians. The duo also have two studio albums to their name – From Here (2018), and Follow Them True (2018). I confess to being unfamiliar with their previous work so this record marks my first encounter with Stick In The Wheel.

Their music is rooted in the melodies of traditional English folk music, but this is no backward yearning for car-less yesterday. Each track has a seam of of modern electronic music. Drones, strange beat-less pulses push each track into strange new territories. A strong melancholy permeates the album, which features appearances and collaborations with artists such as experimental folk guitarist C Joynes, Jack Sharp (Wolf People), and folk-punk outfit Cinder Well. Using mostly traditional material as their staring point the album contains versions 'Nine Herbs Charm', a 10^th century spell translated from Old English, the 14^th century alliterative poem 'Swarte Smiths, Smateryd With Smoke', and an improvised take on Child ballad 'Georgie'. Also highly recommended are the two bookending versions of 'Down In Yon Forest', which set the medieval pagan theme that permeates the whole album.

One thing about music is that it can compliment other things going on in your life, and chime perfectly with landscape, seasons, weather, and even the moods accompanied by your current reading habits. While enjoying the album over mid-winter I was simultaneously reading Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, his account of leaving his Gloucestershire village in the 1930s, working as a labourer in London, then walking through Spain, earning a living playing violin as he goes, at the outset of the Spanish Civil War. While the traditional music of Spain and Old England may not have too much in common there are parallels to be drawn and highlighted here. Ditto the respective mood of the nations. The sense of foreboding in Lee's book chimes with the timeless melancholy found throughout Against The Loathsome Beyond. Spain in the 1930s, along with contemporary Britain found themselves divided and with dark forces emboldened. Both countries possess a proud and stirring musical heritage, each infused with a passion that's celebratory yet full of warning. Against The Loathsome Beyond has been a strangely fitting accompaniment to Lee's book and one I highly recommend to readers of this humble blog.

Click here for Stick In The Wheel's website.

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Click here for From Here Records.

The Cold Spells - Interstitial

The Cold Spells' new LP captures the mood of the nation.

interstitial

/ˌɪntəˈstɪʃ(ə)l/

adjective

adjective: interstitial

of, forming, or occupying interstices.
"the interstitial space"
*ECOLOGY
(of minute animals) living in the spaces between individual sand grains in the soil or aquatic sediments.
"interstitial fauna" 

noun COMPUTING
noun: interstitial; plural noun: interstitials
an advertisement that appears while a chosen website or page is downloading.

The Cold Spells released their self-titled debut last year. Not only was it one of my favourites from 2018, I can honestly say it's way up the list of my all-time favourite albums. The record took around four years to make. So when a follow up was announced, only a year on, anticipation became mixed with trepidation. What if it fell flat? The history of music is littered with bands who released classic debuts only to then put out some lacklustre facsimile second time round. Or perhaps worse, they changed tack stylistically in a misguided attempt at being radical and risk-taking.

I need not have worried. Interstitial is, if anything, an even stronger record than its predecessor. There's a pleasing continuity of sound - the blending of of acoustic guitars and gentle electronics is intact, as is the Estuary English dialect and accent, but it's the songs that impress most. The Cold Spells invoke a world that's familiar but ethereal, with story songs featuring small moments with a bigger emotional resonance. You could call it 21^st century folk but that would infer an optimistic sheen that's not present here. The sentiments are street-weary rather than street-wise. Sample lyric - “Half-cut as I duck in the Crown, a too regular thing. It's a shit-hole, a rough house, I know. I guess it beats staying here.”

Much like fellow Thames Estuary band The Singing Loins, The Cold Spells make Folk music that's aware of its tradition but in no way reverential. They're not trying to be Heron or Comus, or pretending to live with faeries in their local woods. They're more likely to reference Poundland or Plusnet in their lyrics, than they are Pentangle. (That said, Ezra Pound or TS Eliot might get a look in.) In short it's music that's very much on the frequency of modern Britain, with all it's faults and foibles. In twenty years time when record labels will be putting together compilations that give a sense of the music of Brexit Britain, Interstitial should be one of the first ports of call.

The Cold Spells are -

Tim Ward (songs/guitar/vocals)

Michael Farmer (keyboards/vocals)

Click here for The Cold Spells on Twitter.
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Click here for Gare du Nord Records.

The Cold Spells - The Cold Spells

From the margins of south-east of England. The first great album of 2018.

It's rare these days to discover an album that when listened to, doesn't divulge who the band have been listening to. And that dear readers is often the sign that you're onto something good. The Cold Spells' eponymous debut is not without predessessors – there are similarities with both Robert Wyatt and Shirley Collins both in the simple song structures and the unadorned straightly delivered vocals. But importantly The Cold Spells are not aping or mimicing. And here lies just one of the album's strengths.

So what does it sound like? Well there's the afore-mentioned simple folk-song tunes, gentle electronic backing with snatches of static, white noise, occasional backwards vocals drifting in and out. The organic meeting the technological. An intoxicating sound alone but strong poetical lyrics and stories will pull you in further.

It's an album that speaks of and to the lost, lonely and marginalised. To people on the forgotten edges of society, the dispossed, those away from metropolitan glamour. Empathatic stories that touch on delusional paranoia, quiet haunted lives and familial traits that echo through the ages. Mixed in with eulogies, a little folklore, and even a song about drowning. Modern, yet mysterious. The aural equivalent of a hillside containing a chalked white horse and a mulititude of mobile phone masts.

There are plenty of arch, all-too-knowing bands (and labels) that release referential, hauntological music that's often little more than a stylistic pastiche. The Cold Spells has lyrical depth however, and has a timeless quality in it's melodies. Sure you could place it under banner of folktronica given the gentle ambient instrumentation but it's an album that won't date. It's not trying desperately to sound like it's 2018, 1972, or even 1872. It sounds both modern and peculiarly ancient. I guarantee it will sound similarly undated and timeless in years to come.

Apparently it took 4 years to make the album so they may not be bringing out another anytime soon or maybe even ever, which would be a shame. Hopefully The Cold Spells' LP will get the recognition it deserves in the here and now rather than drift off into obscurity. If it doesn't then I'm in no doubt that in 20 years time it will be hailed as something of a lost classic.

The Cold Spells are -

Tim Ward (songs/guitar/vocals)

Michael Farmer (keyboards/vocals)

Catherine Plewa (bass guitar)

Click here for more on The Cold Spells.

Click here for The Cold Spells on Twitter.

Click here for Gare du Nord Records.

Mark McDowell and Friends - Dark Weave

Fifth LP from south-west psych-folk collective. Pastoral folk, drones, subtle electronica and good vibes!

 

I've not been able to post as much on here recently for various reasons. Mainly too busy with work, family commitments and magazine stuff. I'm not complaining as work, family and writing is pretty much my holy trinity for a happy and useful life. I mention this as there have been a few albums and such that I've been sent that deserve my and your attention. Especially this one! I've written briefly about Mark McDowell before, albeit quite some time ago. What I didn't know was that apart from his solo records he also makes music as part of a psych-folk collective called Mark McDowell & Friends. This is their fifth long-player but the first one I've heard so I'm coming in fresh to this as it were.

Dark Weave came out at the end of July and I was able to listen and let it get under my skin before I left for a family holiday in Rhodes. There's something about high summer that always sharpens my emotions and makes me more receptive to music, art, literature etc. You know, all the good stuff. Maybe it's the longer hours of daylight, increased temperatures, more time spent with good people. All these things. Anyhow before I set off on my hols this album was my soundtrack on the daily commute to work. It struck me that despite the use of Indian strings, exotic hand-drums and analogue synth washes and swirls, Dark Weave is an album that could only have come from the British Isles. It simultaneously harks back to the golden era of acid-folk, (when Forest, Comus, Spirogyra and their ilk were the most happening acts around), but also sounds like now. Timeless is not the right word but it certainly taps into and strengthens some kind of tradition that resurfaces every few years and captures the imagination of a new generation. As a kind of nationalism it certainly beats that touted by many of our current political leaders.

So off I go on my holiday to Rhodes in early August. The change of scene, light, temperature and vegetation was a real jolt to the senses. I was struck by how dry, dusty and scrub-like the hills away from the coast were. The geographical distance also made me think about home, where it's not dusty and scrub-like. Where the ground is moist and loamy, damp and full of vegetation. And in my head thoughts kept turning to this record. It seemed to capture this richness that and uniqueness that we quite often lose sight of here.

Apologies to Mark McDowell if this is not like a standard album review. For once I wanted to write in a different way about music and how it can affect us. Suffice to say that Dark Weave has been my favourite album of the Summer and will be getting played over and over as we head into Autumn and Winter. It's that kind of record. Pastoral folk mixed with subtle electronica if you want to place it within genres. But I suggest just listening with open ears, hearts and minds and seeing where it takes you. Music ripe for reflection.