British folk still rocks
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-11-17-british-folk-still-rocks
LLOYD GEDYE -
Nov 17 2010
London's burgeoning folk scene seems to have sprung up out of
nowhere, but if the success of key artists such as Laura Marling,
Mumford & Sons and Johnny Flynn is anything to go on, then this
folk-rock revival is just getting started.
Marling's 2008 debut album, Alas, I Cannot Swim, was nominated for
the prestigious Mercury Music Prize when Marling was a mere 18 years
old and her 2010 follow-up, I Speak Because I Can, has again had the
critics frothing at the mouth and earned Marling another Mercury
Music Prize nomination. Without a doubt Marling is a serious talent.
Sure, the shadows of two of folk's greats, Sandy Denny and Joni
Mitchell, hang over her shoulder, but that is the ultimate compliment
to this young 20-year-old folk singer.
Reared by her amateur musician father on a diet of Mitchell, Bob
Dylan and Joan Baez, Marling would go on as a teen to discover the
work of more contemporary influences including Nina Nastasia, Diane
Cluck, Ryan Adams and Will Oldham.
Her latest album shows the young girl of her debut growing up in the
world as a mature woman. Opener Devil's Spoke has a haunting opening,
combining drone and ambient recordings, before the song breaks wide
open halfway through, steered by a great banjo riff.
Marling sounds energised, even angry, as she spits out the lyrics,
"Eye to eye, nose to nose/ ripping off each other's clothes in a most
peculiar way", later chastising her lover, asking "have you come here
to rescue me?" in a tone that signifies this woman needs no rescuing.
Later on Blackberry Stone she scolds her ex-lover, "you never did
learn to let the little things go/ you never did learn to let me be".
The song has an autobiographical feel and gossipmongers will point
towards her break-up with Noah and the Whale frontman Charlie Fink.
Alpha Swallows is a sweeping, epic folk song, Goodbye England
(Covered in Snow) is a gorgeous little number with beautiful string
arrangements and What He Wrote is a tragic old tale with Marling's
voice paired with an acoustic guitar.
But the album highlight is Darkness Descends, an up-tempo folk-rock
number, which is closest to the sunnier songs on Marling's debut,
even if the subject matter of life passing you by is hardly jubilant.
If Marling is London's queen of folk, then the king is the
27-year-old Johnny Flynn whose latest album, Been Listening, features
the pair doing a duet in the song The Water.
With their two dynamic voices gently riding on a gentle acoustic
guitar rhythm, they spin a tale of being one with the river, totally
part of the year 2010, but somehow so ancient it feels shrouded in
cobwebs and dust.
Flynn released his debut album, A Larum, in 2008 and immediately
garnered attention for songs such as Wayne Rooney and Brown Trout
Blues, which is uncannily similar to the work of American songwriter
Elvis Perkins. But on his new album Flynn has upped his game,
delivering an album that secures his place among the world's finest
living songwriters.
At times Been Listening is reminiscent of the work of David Byrne,
Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright and Perkins, but Flynn has a unique
take on folk rock, embellishing it with horns, violins and great
percussion work.
The album is littered with gorgeous moments, like the searing
electric guitar that brings the title track to a close, the
magnificent horns that are peppered throughout Churlish May and the
banjo and violin-driven Sweet William Pt 2. Flynn on this form seems
unstoppable.
Then hardly bringing up the rear is the United Kingdom's most
successful new folk band, Mumford & Sons, whose debut album, Sigh No
More, reached number three in the UK album charts and broke into
markets like Australia by securing a number one chart position.
On top of this the band earned themselves a Mercury Music Prize
nomination, but eventually lost out to The XX.
Lead singer Marcus Mumford has been romantically linked with Marling
and the band basically functions as her band too, even if the success
of their debut means they have a higher profile now in the UK.
It was tracks like the single, Little Lion Man, that propelled
Mumford & Sons into the hearts of so many fans, but I dare you to sit
and listen to the songs a few times and not sing along to the chorus,
"it was not your fault but mine/ it was your heart on the line/ I
really fucked it up this time/ didn't I my dear".
There are moments on the album when songs such as Winter Winds and
The Cave sound like the work of Flynn, but Mumford's raspy vocals
give off an earthier feel and he has a tendency towards overblown arrangements.
The title-track opener will please fans of Fleet Foxes with its
beautiful harmonies, and Thistle & Weeds is a sad tale of a lovesick
man on his knees begging for redemption.
With dynamic musicians like Marling, Flynn and Mumford plying their
trade in the long-worn traditions of British folk music, it shows
that the influence of 1960s UK folk stars, such as Sandy Denny,
Richard Thompson, Bert Jansch, Danny Thompson and the Incredible
String Band, has not been lost just yet.
.
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