VICTORIA BOURNE AND WALT SHAW - Songs From A Cloud Chamber
Discus: Discus109DL
Victoria Bourne: vocals; Walt Shaw: percussion
Recorded and mixed by Victoria Bourne
The songs on this set come from traditional English folk tunes. So, as an example, the opening track is drawn from a song called Three Ravens, possibly drawing on Thomas Ravenscroft and his notes in ‘Melismata’ of 1611. Listening to the words, you might glimpse phrases from Shakespeare’s plays, so well have the notions of the song become embedded in our everyday vocabulary. Or listeners with familiarity with Martin McCarthy (for example ‘Ye Mariner’s All’, track 4) or Peggy Seeger (‘Shakespring Maid on the Shore’, track 2) and the preservation of the Tradition, might recognise the words, phrasing and tune that is presented here. Certainly, from a quick trawl of vinyl and CDs, I could find other recordings of the tunes collected on this set. But, I have no examples of the songs interpreted in the ways that Bourne and Shaw present them. The nearest analogy I have (in concept rather than sound) is that ways in which Jah Wobble has experimented with English and Bretagne folk music. In both cases the ambition is to retain the purity of the “original” source while creating a setting that challenges contemporary listeners. But this creates many challenges… Not least the ‘scare-quotes’ around the word ‘original’ (we simply do not know what the song sounded like when it was written) but also the question of conveying the songs to a contemporary audience (particularly one that might have listened to music through many ‘folk revivals’). Either the musicians seek the earthiness of the original version of the tune (but sanitised through tunings and phrasings for an audience brought up on BBC Radios 1 and 2) or one seeks to find ways of creating musical contexts through which the original lyrics offer shocking and challenging ideas or stories. What Bourne does with the multi-trackings of her voice is to provide a sort of potted history of each song. This provides layer upon layer on plausible ways in which the songs could be sung (often mixed in rounds or canons), depending on how she wants the rules of the song to be interpreted. What shifts the songs from an archaeology (in which the ‘original’ is preserved) to a contemporary version is the combination of Bourne’s layering and Shaw’s percussion, which often provides the sound of chains dragging and pulling on the tunes – a little like Marley’s ghost in Dickens’s ‘Christmas Carol’, pulling the listener away from the comfortable and familiar to experience something shocking and strange. At the end of several listens to this recording, I am still going back to recordings of English folk music and findings new ways of hearing them.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Discus: Discus109DL
Victoria Bourne: vocals; Walt Shaw: percussion
Recorded and mixed by Victoria Bourne
The songs on this set come from traditional English folk tunes. So, as an example, the opening track is drawn from a song called Three Ravens, possibly drawing on Thomas Ravenscroft and his notes in ‘Melismata’ of 1611. Listening to the words, you might glimpse phrases from Shakespeare’s plays, so well have the notions of the song become embedded in our everyday vocabulary. Or listeners with familiarity with Martin McCarthy (for example ‘Ye Mariner’s All’, track 4) or Peggy Seeger (‘Shakespring Maid on the Shore’, track 2) and the preservation of the Tradition, might recognise the words, phrasing and tune that is presented here. Certainly, from a quick trawl of vinyl and CDs, I could find other recordings of the tunes collected on this set. But, I have no examples of the songs interpreted in the ways that Bourne and Shaw present them. The nearest analogy I have (in concept rather than sound) is that ways in which Jah Wobble has experimented with English and Bretagne folk music. In both cases the ambition is to retain the purity of the “original” source while creating a setting that challenges contemporary listeners. But this creates many challenges… Not least the ‘scare-quotes’ around the word ‘original’ (we simply do not know what the song sounded like when it was written) but also the question of conveying the songs to a contemporary audience (particularly one that might have listened to music through many ‘folk revivals’). Either the musicians seek the earthiness of the original version of the tune (but sanitised through tunings and phrasings for an audience brought up on BBC Radios 1 and 2) or one seeks to find ways of creating musical contexts through which the original lyrics offer shocking and challenging ideas or stories. What Bourne does with the multi-trackings of her voice is to provide a sort of potted history of each song. This provides layer upon layer on plausible ways in which the songs could be sung (often mixed in rounds or canons), depending on how she wants the rules of the song to be interpreted. What shifts the songs from an archaeology (in which the ‘original’ is preserved) to a contemporary version is the combination of Bourne’s layering and Shaw’s percussion, which often provides the sound of chains dragging and pulling on the tunes – a little like Marley’s ghost in Dickens’s ‘Christmas Carol’, pulling the listener away from the comfortable and familiar to experience something shocking and strange. At the end of several listens to this recording, I am still going back to recordings of English folk music and findings new ways of hearing them.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
