Posts Tagged ‘Folk’

Matt Elliott – The End Of Days

Posted: 20 March 2023 in Albums
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Ici d’ailleurs – 31st March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Matt Elliott, since breaking out from the Third Eye Blind moniker, has maintained a fairly steady flow of output, with an album every three years or so, with this being his ninth.

Farewell To All We Know (2020) and The Calm Before (2016) were just the most recent, with the former bring a dark, lugubrious affair: the title carried connotations of facing finality, something that doesn’t really sit comfortably in Western culture outside of the realms of art – and it seems that death has become an even greater taboo in recent years, with anything which references death, and particularly suicide – requiring a trigger warning.

Given that suicide is the single most common cause of death in males under the age of forty-five in the UK and a high on the tables in the US and many other countries, and that death is the sole inevitability in life, I feel it’s something to be faced up to, not shied away from. It may be a contentious view, but we don’t get to choose whether to leave the room in real life, so why in art? Perhaps bringing these subjects out into the open – in the same way as mental health has finally become accepted as being something we can discuss – would render them less triggering. Herein lies something of a contradiction, in that we now discuss mental health, but not the effects or consequences. And have we really broken the barrier on mental heath? I often hear or see people saying they’re not having a good day or week because ‘mental health’. It’s progress, in that historically people would have rather said they had the shits than were struggling – but there’s further to go, especially if we’re to be sure that ‘mental health’ doesn’t become the new ‘upset stomach’ that gets a pass from disclosing what’s really wrong. Not because prying is to be encouraged, but there’s talking and there’s talking, and if we’re really going to talk about mental health, then shutting a conversation down by using the phrase isn’t going to make that happen.

The press release suggests that Farewell To All We Know was ‘a harbinger of the collapsological crisis that was COVID 19. What can be built when everything is down, when everything has crumbled, ideals and beliefs, a sense of commonality and community?’ Of the new album, it poses further questions: ‘What is left when you are without words? What is left? Death, perhaps, but also life… What is left? A form of awe that dulls? An enthusiasm that dries up? A curiosity that no longer makes sense?’

As the title suggests, with The End Of Days, Elliott once again has his focus placed firmly on finality. And just fifteen minutes surveying the news suggests that we really are living at the end of days: plague, natural disasters… it’s not a question of if, but when, and how? Will climate change bring about the end of days for humanity, or will we wipe ourselves out with nuclear apocalypse before we reach that point?

‘All life’s wasted time’, he intimates on the title track which opens this delicate six-song suite – a sparse acoustic folk tune that has a lilting quality that’s easy on the ear. It sounds like he could be singing this sitting in a rocking chair by the fire, but brings a tear to the eye as he articulates the parental worries many of us – myself most acutely – feel.

And even all the smiles on children’s faces bring you pain

When you think of what they’ll face

And if they’ll even come of age

A world resigned to flame

Because we’ve burned it all away

You – I – feel so helpless. Turning down the heating, turning off the lights – you tell yourself you’re saving the environment, but you’re only making your life more difficult while industrial complexes around the globe churn out more pollution in a minute than any household will in a lifetime.

‘We need to wind time back to the eighteenth century before the industrial revolution and show them now’, my daughter told me over dinner this evening. She’s eleven, and she’s right, and I feel the anguish flow through me as the horns swell in a rising tide of warped brass atop the flamenco guitar in the closing minutes of this ten-minute epic.

It’s not the last, either. ‘Healing A Wound Will Often Begin with a Bruise’ is over eight minutes in length, and ‘Flowers for Bea’ is an immense twelve and a half. ‘Song of Consolation’ sits between folk and neoclassical and is achingly beautiful, but offers little consolation. Because what consolation is there?

Incorporating jazz and baroque, The End Of Days feels less darkly oppressive than its predecessor, sliding perhaps into bleak resignation to provide the soundtrack to the drinks in the basement bar on the last night on earth. Yes, tonight we’re going to party like it’s goodbye forever. This is the album to which to clink glasses and hug and cry and share final gratitude for those who have been there for us, made our lives worth living as we swallow hard and brace ourselves for the inevitable.

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Hem Netjer – The Song Of Trees

Posted: 19 February 2023 in Albums
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28th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Something about ‘Elemental Cry’, the lead single from Song of the Trees struck a chord and resonated on a subliminal level. It landed with me at a difficult time, personally. Admittedly, most times are difficult, but some are more difficult than others. More often than not, music helps me through those times, and it’s not always the music I’m expecting. Sometimes, old favourites provide the least comfort and are simply too painful. Perhaps I was clawing for something spiritual, music that provided an escape to another realm. Truth is, I’m eternally seeking something. This sweeping, soaring epic channels something that goes beyond notions of derivative Nordic cosplay cal to forge something powerful beyond words.

This is a quite particular and specific thing about music: sometimes it’s not the music itself, but your state on receiving it. I was, and am, in a state, and words aren’t easy. They are a slog. I don’t want to be here, but must power on. And so that transportation, that being lifted to another place, is perfect in terms of needs. Combining heavy synth drone, spacious piano and metallic twangs, The Song Of Trees is tense and atmospheric. It twists at muscles and nerves as drones undulate, hover and hang in the dense air. As the title suggests, it’s rich and earthy, intertwined with nature and the elements, an album that evokes a sense of the vastness of the great outdoors, the space and freedom that instils life into our bodies, and has for as long as we’ve walked the earth. Only now, contemporary living has separated us from nature to the extent that to walk in woods, or to find a place unsullied by human impact feels like some sort of a special treat. This means that while it’s perhaps harder to feel an attunement to the natural world in daily living, experiencing it is something to be cherished all the more dearly. This, then, transports me from the dingy confines of my poky rectangular office space and to somewhere I can feel free.

Given the taster, and the album’s opener, the expansive ‘Void’, ‘Salt and Tears’ lands as an early surprise, being quite beat-driven and overtly electronic with something of a glitchy leaning that’s far from natural or organic. It’s powerful, and it’s all about the dominant percussion, which works well, although it’s not nearly as powerful as third track, ‘Eldur’: the beats are again dance-orientated, but the vocals are positively operatic. It’s a song that registers on a number of levels. In combining the natural, the earthly, the spiritual, and the ultra-modern, with technology-orientated sounds, this could be a clash if not handled with due care and sensitivity, but Hem Netjer create with a sense of balance and equilibrium, which in some way conveys our conflicting, divided existences.

I suppose there are elements of more mainstream artists as well as the likes of Zola Jesus and the wave of Nordic metal acts which seems to be emerging all blended together here, and these imbue The Song Of Trees with a power that’s greater than the sum of the often quite minimal parts. If ‘Freedom’ characterises the album’s more commercial moments, there are plenty more that carve a different space. ‘Elemental Cry’ arrives as the penultimate track with it thunderous drums and steely strings and its power remains undiminished, and it’s the clear highlight of the album.

And elemental is the word: The Song Of Trees has, despite electronic sounds being so integral, a purity that is rare indeed – and that’s both powerful and moving.

The six-minute closer, ‘Otherworld’ is epic in every sense: sparse in instrumentation yet ultimately vast and immersive, it makes for a strong finish to a strong album.

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Carpet – Maldon Salt / Men Like Us

Posted: 15 October 2022 in Singles and EPs
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14th October 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

I’ve likely mentioned it before, but on the one hand, Leeds has quite a distinctive sound, albeit one that’s evolved over the last decade, bit on the other, its scene is characterised by its diversity and eclecticism. It’s too be expected, of course: it’s a big city with two massive universities and a lot of small venues where artists can try out and develop their style and draw influence and inspiration from others. Time was when everyone was either doing instrumental post-rock or making a massive fucking racket.

Leeds based musician and recording engineer Rob Slater AKA Carpet belongs to the eternal production line of acoustic-based artists that’s not so much a Leeds thing but a music thing – but he himself is an integral part f the Leeds scene, having played in a number of standout bands, including Thank, Mi Mye, Post War Glamour Girls, and The Spills, as well as ‘working as a recording-engineer/producer from his own Greenmount Studios in Armley where, this year alone, his credits include Yard Act’s debut ‘The Overload’, as well as debut albums from Leeds peers Thank and Crake (with whom Slater plays drums, and who I reviewed just the other day for Whisperin’ and Hollerin’.

The press release promises ‘four tracks of thoughtful and introspective beauty, offering a compelling and unhurried insight into Slater’s musical world’. And it does that.

There’s nothing remarkable about the songs or their execution: Slater’s songwriting and execution is simply exactly as it should be: tight, emotive, melodic. It’s not exciting or dramatic by any means: it’s overtly introspective and thoroughly accessible, with easy-going songs. It’s clear that Slater simply has no interest in going massive. This may not be his choice, so much as a limitation of the medium. That’s certainly not a criticism: Carpet has a wide, if low-level appeal, and while it is, in many ways, a functional indie folk work, it’s also musically entertaining and easy on the ear, and does the job.

What is the job? Of being music. Yes, sometimes, that’s enough.

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Watch: ‘Yarrow’ by Celestial North

Posted: 15 August 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Edinburgh born Kendall based artist Celestial North has shared ‘Yarrow’, a haunting atmospheric ‘botanical’ soundtrack.  For fans of Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds or Sigur Ros, this reflective and meditative piece gently sways with a wash of pianos and sighing melodies. It’s a tantalizing other side of Celestial North’s artistry and a teaser for her album released later this year. 

Watch the video for ‘Yarrow’ here:

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She says of the song:  “I often think in ‘music’. My thoughts are usually awash with colours and sounds. I was sitting trying to meditate, or contemplate, beside the yarrow patch in my garden. I was finding it difficult to articulate how I was feeling and started to feel a bit frustrated. I decided to sit quietly and start again. I realised that I didn’t really have any words to write down as such but I did have a tune playing in my head. I decided to record this tune on my piano and added some other elements that I felt benefitted the song — a bodhran drum, a choir, the rustling of the yarrow patch and the roses recorded from my garden and some simple electronic sounds.  This botanical soundscape is representative of how I felt whilst I was sitting with the yarrow and the tune played on the piano is the tune that was playing in my head whilst sitting with the plant."

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elkyn – holy spirit social club

Posted: 5 August 2022 in Albums
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Curation Records

Christopher Nosnibor

Elkyn is very much about the slow burn, the gradual diffusion, both musically and in terms of career trajectory. Joey Donnelly unveiled elkyn in 2020, having made the subtle shift from performing as elk and releasing the magnificently understated beech EP in 2019. Since then, he’s continued to release a steady stream off beautifully-crafted singles as teasers for the album, the most recent of which, ‘if you’re still leaving’ emerged in March of this year. Interestingly, the melody bears certain parallels with U2’s ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, but nothing could be further from the bombast of the stadium-fillers’ epic: this is introspective bedroom indie, quiet and contemplative; there’s no ego, no pomp, no big production. ‘So this is it,’ he sings with a weak resignation.

So while progress certainly hasn’t been slow, it’s not exactly been swift, either, and listening to holy spirit social club seemingly explains why. To begin with, there’s the level of detail in the arrangements: on the surface, they’re fairly sparse, simple, acoustic works, but listen closely and there is so much more to hear, from delicate bass and washes of synth, rolling drums and incidental interludes with rippling piano and more. Reverb and layering are applied subtly and judiciously, too, and these things don’t happen by accident, but through a close and careful ear on every bar. The absence of capitalisation may niggle a pedant like me, but it’s clearly another conscious decision and rather than coming across like an irritating affectation, feels more like another aspect of elkyn’s self-opinion, the small ‘i’ indicative of a kind of abasement, while in no way seeking sympathy or validation. It’s a cliché to the point of a running joke when musicians say they write songs for themselves and aren’t bothered if anyone likes them, but with elkyn, it seems genuinely plausible: these songs are so intimate, it’s as if he’s playing them under the assumption no-one else will ever hear them.

If ‘found the back of the tv remote’ (another single cut) sounds like dreamy, winsome indie, it’s equally reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr’s more stripped back moments, and Donnelly shares that sense of almost being embarrassed to be audible as he sings comes through in J Mascis’ delivery. But then, this leads us to the second reason why elkyn isn’t banging stuff out every few weeks – these songs are intensely intimate, and filled with vulnerability and self-criticism, and one suspects that tendency to self-critique extends to his recordings in the same was as social situations, relationships, and life in general.

But while the tone is plaintive, mournful, regretful, sad, that isn’t the vibe of the songs in themselves, because elkyn manages to infuse every song with a certain optimism, the melancholy flavoured with hope. There’s a breeziness, a brightness, I might even say a ‘summeriness’ about many of the songs on holy spirit social club that renders them uplifting. But even at its saddest, most disconsolate and dejected, holy spirit social club brings joy simply by virtue of being so achingly wonderful in every way.

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Kristina Stazaker – The Day the Drum Stopped

Posted: 16 May 2022 in Singles and EPs
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5th May 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

The pandemic may be over – or not, depending on your viewpoint or your government – but there’s no question that the pandemic affected us all in some way, shape, or form, and that as much as people are getting on with their so-called ‘normal’ lives, we’re not all fully over it. Some of us may never be.

‘The Day the Drum Stopped’ was penned during the height – or depths, depending on your perspective – of the UK pandemic lockdown, and captures the instantaneous psychological spasm of the moment everything halts abruptly. ‘The Day the Drum Stopped’ is perhaps another way of phrasing ‘the great pause’, and it was a strange time to say the least.

For many – not least of all musicians, those in hospitality and retail – everything stopped. For others, who continued to work from home, while also trying to manage home-schooling, the pause was less pronounced, marked more by the absence of people and traffic in the street when venturing out for the prescribed daily exercise or trip to the local supermarket in the hope of scoring both loo roll and pasta. But no question, it was strange, a plunge into the unknown, the unpredictable, and this was a cause of major anxiety for so, so many.

Kristina Stazaker has articulated this succinctly and in a most accessible fashion on her new single, propelled by some sturdy percussion and ‘builds up to a powerful ending where the drums restart and the electricity of life flicks into action again’. It starts with a solid march, before loping away like a galloping horse, and there’s optimism there, as Stazaker remains positive that ‘the drums will come back again’, and it’s a rush and then… it stops, and you’re left, vaguely nonplussed, wishing there was more. Which seems like life, really. Cracking single, though.

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 Artwork - Kristina Stazaker

Watch: ‘Fehu (First Flight of the White Raven Live Version)’ by Wardruna

Posted: 22 April 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Wardruna are releasing an official music video for the streamed live performance of ‘Fehu’. Einar Selvik says, “Fehu is a song inspired by ancient runic poetry. The word itself refers to cattle/livestock and wealth and the song discusses the duality of wealthiness. "Fehu" was originally released on the album Runaljod – Yggdrasil in 2013. It has been a permanent song in our live-set ever since the release and thus, it feels great to finally release a live version of the song.”

The release date of Kvitravn: First Flight of the White Raven has been moved to 10th June. A statement from Einar is as follows; "Due to a very unfortunate production issue, we are forced to move the release date of First Flight Of The White Raven in all of its formats to June 10th. On a more positive note and due to popular demand, we will make the DVD available as a standalone item and offer the concert as VOD (Video-On-Demand) through our World and US online-shops." He continues, "the DVD presale starts April 22nd along with a new digital single and video from the upcoming release. We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause and we are grateful for your understanding."

Watch ‘Fehu’ here:

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Photo Credit: M12 Kultur

Darkher – The Buried Storm

Posted: 14 April 2022 in Albums
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Prophecy Productions – 15th April 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

As Darkher, Jayn Maiven lives up to her moniker. Since beginning her career in 2012, progress has been slow but steady, with an eponymous debut EP in 2013 being followed by a second EP, The Kingdom Field in 2014 paving the way for her full-length debit, Realms in 2016. The Buried Storm, then, has been five years in the wait, but it was most definitely worth it.

‘Sirens Nocturne’ sets the bar with a low, slow, brooding drone of strings providing the backdrop to Jayn’s haunting vocal. That backdrop gradually swells with layers of tremulous violins, and her voice heads skyward, a glorious choral sound that’s spiritual beyond verbalisation.

What’s striking is just how deeply steeped in folk this is, the sparse, haunting melodies evoking rugged moorlands and windswept mountainsides. This isn’t a matter of cliché: this is music that touches the naked soul. A tribal drum thumps way off in the distance on the funereal ‘Lowly Weep’; it’s majestic and it’s moving, and over the course of its eight-minute duration, the swelling sound conveys so much more than mere words. Utilising post-rock tropes, it tapers down to quiet chiming guitar around the mid-point before bursting into a monumental thunder of slow, overdriven power chords, a slow-burning crescendo that’s both heavy and mesmerising in its graceful execution.

For its brevity and simplicity, built around a picked acoustic guitar and mournful strings, ‘Unbound’ is intense, but it’s on ‘Where the Devil Waits’ that we really feel a closer connection to Jayn; the vocals are more prominent, and we feel as it we’re riding the waves of a tempest – both literal and emotional – with her.

The true power of The Buried Storm lies in just how much Maiven does with so little. That said, ‘Love’s Sudden Death’ packs a dark density, and brings with it a slow, doomy trudge that invites comparisons to Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle, and not simply because these are female artists exploring heavy terrain – although I suppose that is a factor, in that we have a crop of artists who balance weight and ethereality, all wrapped in a mist of gothic enigma.

It’s on ‘Immortals’ that everything comes together in a slow-building crescendo – the distant rolling thunder of drums and growing tension that finally breaks into a bold sweep of sound at around the mid-point of its eight-minute expanse.

The piano-led closer, ‘Fear Not, My King’ plods down into the darkest depths. It’s dolorous and dank, and sucks you down toward the depths of reflection, and places you may not want to go.

The Buried Storm is truly beautiful, elegant, with grace and poise and power – and for all its softness, its gentleness, it’s a difficult and at times harrowing album, and a magnificent artistic achievement.

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Elanor Moss – Citrus EP

Posted: 13 March 2022 in Singles and EPs
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11th March 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Elanor Moss seems to be drawn to water, but not necessarily in the most soothing of ways. You’re more likely to find her gradually sinking than floating on the crest of a wave of soaking in the soothing ebb and flow of a coastal tide. Her debut release, the five-track Citrus EP finds the York-based artist reimagining Millais’ ‘Ophelia’ for the twenty-first century on the cover art, while the video for ‘Soundings’ finds her awash and adrift in a bathtub, water threatening to plunge into her mouth as she sings of her ‘Drowning / the sound of my heart / As I’m sounding / the depths of this whisky jar’.

If the metaphor is obvious, it’s also highly effective. The sensation is relatable. When things become too much, and you start to feel overwhelmed… drowning is the closest simile in the common vocabulary. While few of us have actually experienced drowning, there’s an innate sense within all of us of what it would be like – struggling for air, to stay afloat. Most of us have felt that way at some point, and the beauty of Moss’ art is articulating it so succinctly.

According to the bio, ‘The Citrus EP is a collection that addresses the tension that arises within yourself when you need to muster the courage to will yourself well again. The protagonist in this collection of tracks is someone teetering on the edge of pulling themselves out of a hard time, resisting ‘getting better’ with force. You go with her through a series of unfortunate events; each one she knows full well what is happening but does anyway. But this is not a hopeless record, not at all. Their reflections from the other side and recorded from a place of empathy, strength and kindness towards a bruised past self.’

I’m not about to press the alignment of art and artist, and knowing nothing of Moss beyond her art, I’m in no position to comment on whether or not her life informs her art, but it very much feels like she’s speaking and articulating and assimilating her experiences through her songs, where certain themes recur, subtly, but undeniably. ‘I want to drink ‘till I’m too drunk to think’, she sings on ‘Sober’, while on ‘Soundings’, she croons that ‘this whisky is burning’. ‘His breath was like a heart attack / the whisky stung me like a slap’ she recounts on ‘Citrus’. But not to dwell on this unduly, the songs are ultimately positive, empowering, and the realisation of the songs is magnificent, balancing sparseness and directness with multiple layers of vocal harmony and reverb. It’s a slick production, but one that doesn’t impinge on the intimacy of the songs and their delivery, essentially centred around acoustic guitar and voice. Only a fraction below the layers and reverb is a collection of acoustic folk-flavoured songs that are raw, sincere, and relatable. Citrus is bittersweet, and-pretty special.

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Watch: ‘‘Skugge’ (live) by Wardruna

Posted: 11 March 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Wardruna release an official music video for their song ‘Skugge’ (meaning Shadow). The song is an eerie sonic journey, voicing a dialogue between man and shadow or as Einar Selvik puts it; “it is a song about shadows, echoes and the balance between seeking answers and wisdom internally and externally”. The video was filmed and produced in Norway by Ragnarok Film in January 2022.

To shorten the wait for their upcoming release Kvitravn – First Flight of the White Raven (out on April 22nd 2022), the live version of the song is also released on all digital platforms via Music For Nations/Sony Music/Columbia Germany/ByNorse. Watch the video here:

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