A quartet from Stourbridge comprising Julia Disney on keyboards, Odilia Mabrouk on violin, percussionist Lisa Westwood and Jon Hazelwood on bass and guitar with all three girls sharing lead vocals, CATCH THE RAIN made their debut late last year with the Tapestry EP, their music variously embracing contemporary folk, classic Laurel Canyon vibes and Eastern European, the title track being a five and half minute fiddle and piano driven waltzing Weimar cabaret and Balkan cocktail with fairytale lyrics about the heart’s fateful tapestry. That’s reprised here on their debut album Alder Grove alongside the dreamy piano-based, chorus cascading, lullabying Broken Wings, Disney on soaring lead, a song with a refugees hint about having to leave home and navigate life anew (“We were children fighting in your war/Far too young to leave the safe safe shore”) that sounds as though it could have come from a Willy Russell musical. Also resurfacing, again featuring Disney and also of a stage musicals bent is the jaunty Love Is Fine aimed at telling depression and sadness (and anyone who brings you down) to bugger off (“There is just nothing left to say, so go away…All that you do is hold me back/And I'd like some time to/Fly, a while, without you, by my side”), and Mabrouk on lead, their eponymous, piano-based signature tune about mental turmoil (“the rush and the roll that’s inside of me/ Is the call of a siren’s warning”) and finding recovery (“I need to catch the rain and slowly find myself, again and again/Or soon I’ll lose a sense of where and when I am”).
It opens with the first of the new numbers, Disney on lead for Sailor’s Tale which, with its jittery piano and swaying melody draws on familiar folk imagery of seeking adventure, here framed as a conversation between a young woman looking to see the world and a sailor who embodies her dreams of being carefree, who dispenses some wise advice: “He said only settle down/If that is where your heart is/But don't let yourself drown/Don't stop before you've started/Or you'll only look around/Always hoping for excitement/And you'll never leave this town/And you'll never find your true love”. So, basically, follow your dreams, then rather than live with regrets. Keeping a maritime note, The Sea with its rolling piano notes, percussion waves, whistle and slightly Eastern European tang mingled with a Pentangle spray has Mabrouk singing about how the sea brings out all emotions within us, their impact lingering even when we’re not directly embracing its power (“when I leave you are with me/I close my eyes so I can be/Closer to you the one I know/The inner music of my soul”).
Themes of escaping percolate the album, specifically so on the jazzy rhythm (a definite Brubeck touch to the bass) and pulsing folk colours of Time To Fly with Disney on lead singing about leaving a toxic relationship (“Throw all you have at me I’m not gonna break/Wait for reactions well what a mistake/I’m done with your web of confusion and lies/I’m building a wall you see each day brick by brick/The more shit you throw at me the more the wall sticks”).
Mabrouk on lead and Disney on aching violin, things rein back in for the delicate fingerpicked title track, a close harmonies song about the calming and restorative power of nature amid life’s chaos “ever we’ll wander and ever we’ll meet, safe in the alder grove” while also sounding an environmental note about climate change (“A thousand joys are bearing me/Through verdant fields and cedar trees but all I can, think of is 'when, will, I lose you'…Anger-weary overwhelm, trapped in a world-burning game, when will we love, when will we truly, care, for our home”).
There’s a jazzy waltzing Eastern European rhythm again for the near six-minute Kings and Queens, a social commentary protest song of sorts about the them and us divides in society (“For you are the kings and the queens, and we are the pawns, we’ll do as you say/What choice do we have but to play this old game, we’ve been here before, we don’t wanna play”) that then reverses the situation (“ if you get the chance to talk/Through muddy waters you’ll clumsily wade, our mind’s already made/For we are the kings and the queens and you are the pawns you’ll do as we say”). A few seconds longer with Westwood’s sole lead, Ode To The Overthinker is pretty much summed up by the title (“There once was a girl with a busy mind/Filled with thoughts of every kind/She found herself to much frustration/In a constant state of contemplation/She'd start by thinking just one thing/But off that thought five more would spring/And each of those would spawn ten more/And none the same as the one before”) that concludes “Mindfulness is key, they say/Give me mindLESSness any day!”.
Disney’s final lead comes with Keep on Walking which they says explores the experience of long and arduous hikes but that’s just a metaphor for persisting in the face of adversity (“my rucksack is heavy/From the weight of it all/And I’ll keep, keep on walkin’/In the hope that one day/A cool breeze from the ocean/Will come wash your shadow away…For the voice of the mountain/Keeps me sane, keeps me strong”).
It ends with Mabrouk and the percussive strum, keys and chorus harmonies of Time To Listen, a song about taking time to listen yourself and your own needs and putting in some self-love (“When I was young I knew what I wanted/Guess I didn’t have a clue/Loving another would heal my heartache/Now I know that isn’t true/Started to do some digging, didn’t like what I found/Now it’s time to turn it around… This time I won’t be walking away/From who I really am”). Well worth getting a good soaking.
BIG SPECIAL and JOHN GRANT join forces for Stay Down Lazarus (SO Recordings), described as a “big moan about the social promise of elevation and rising up, that doesn’t really exist for most people” as it explores themes of deception and being forced to conform to a societal expectations, a track that was the first to be written for the debut album but felt somehow lacking,. Grant fills that lack adding his mighty voice to the chorus refrain while the others get on with the rapping (“new posters for old flicks”), thundering drums and electronic storms.
The every innovative and experimental BONFIRE RADICALS return with Flywheel, a five-track EP of swirling musical colours and shapes recorded live in the round and drawing on British, Greek and Balkan influences alike, propelled by their urgent rhythm section. It kicks off with the musical mayhem of Zalizome/Den Born Manoula M, a fusion of two Greek traditionals with metronome on speed percussive rhythm, clarinet, Sarah Farmer’s frenzied dancing Celtic fiddle, indecipherable vocals and Emma Reading’s blistering guitar crescendo.
Penned by clarinetist Katie Stevens, The Lost Pick, a lament for an awol plectrum, takes its influence from Bulgaria folk with kaval and recorder dancing around a 13.8 groove. Then, in distinct contrast, Michelle Holloway sings reedy lead with Stevens, Farmer and Peter Churchill on harmonies on a brooding arrangement of the traditional Love Is Teasing that edges more towards trance-inducing Eastern doom metal than folk.
Farmer’s responsible for the burbling wobbly, scat electronica Sarah’s Muffins with its epileptic drums and ba ba baaing vocal interjections sounding like The Swingle Singers having a meltdown. It ends with a brief reimaging of bassist Churchill’s Satsuma Moon off their last album here reincarnated with accordion as Squeeze That Satsuma. Barkingly wonderful.
TABLE 4 1 is Birmingham-based singer/songwriter Harry Bott, former lead singer of the Cigarette Social Club, his dreamily waltzing pop meets folk new single ‘Day &Night' "a sombre outlook on love - the highs, the lows, seen through the eyes of a damaged romantic".
Progressive-rock/folk duo ARMCHAIR GODS return with a new EP, Ritual, out now on Bandcamp (https:// armchairgods.bandcamp.com) with other platforms following in January. While visiting the White Peak in the Peak District, they came across a young woman meditating near the central cove of a Neolithic stone circle, obscured from view from the entrances, a sacred place of ritual. On leaving, she left behind a token, a garland of wildflowers placed on a large fallen limestone slab encrusted with moss and lichen, weather worn by time, This and subsequent visits to ancient sites through the seasonal festivals of Mabon, Samhain, Ostara, and Beltane, many believing these ancient stone circles served as early cosmic observatories, their alignment with equinoxes and solstices heralding the changing seasons and the procession of pagan festivals through the Wheel of the Year. Thus, the tracks named for the festivals, this music for pagan celebrations. Celebrating the Autumn equinox and harvest, Mabonopens things up with a cosmic swirl of keyboards drums and guitar, proceeding to Beltane the Gaelic May Day festival, the mood calming down to a dreamy haze with stuttering, repeated acoustic guitar patterns, drums and virtual brass. Out of seasonal sequence here since it takes place in March, named for the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostra, Ostara marks the spring equinox, the track with military snare beats, tinkling piano, orchestral keys and timpani returning to the cosmic swell before gently ebbing away on strings. Coming from old Irish and meaning 'end of summer', Samhain is synonymous with Halloween and, the longest track at almost six minutes (with a video on YouTube) is suitably brooding and robed in shadowy musical shapes with its steady, relentless drum beat and the hovering ghostly keys and wailing guitars. Something to celebrate indeed.
