'11 - Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Almanac Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Almanac
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Fighting the injustices of lossy audio I bring you another installment of lossless audio.
Artist.................: Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo
Album................: Almanac
Genre................: Folk
Source...............: CD
Year..................: 2011
Ripper................: NMR
Codec................: Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
Version...............: FLAC 1.2.1 20070917
Quality...............: Lossless, (avg. bitrate: 822kb/s)
Channels.............: Stereo / 44100 HZ / 16 Bit
Tags...................: VorbisComment
Included..............: Eac Rip w/ LOG, CUE, M3U
Covers................: Front
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BBC Review
Vocals that soar and arrangements that shine.
Mike Diver 2011-02-17
What a peculiar place folk finds itself in at the start of 2011. A pleasant place, but nevertheless far from anticipated. With coverage of the recent Radio 2 Folk Awards more prominent than ever, winners like Chris Wood and Bellowhead beamed into the living rooms of new audiences, and folk-influenced artists Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons succeeding at the Brits – the latter outfit were shortlisted for a Grammy, too – it’s clear the genre is in rude health. It is poised, perhaps, for the first time in decades, to properly impress upon the mainstream.
So, what next? More artists in the Mumford mould, taking tropes from traditional songs but filtering influences through pop accessibility? Or great live bands like Bellowhead following (Roots Award-winners) the Levellers into the charts? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between these two potential points, with artists like Emily Barker. Clearly schooled in the style of Britain’s folk convention and rooted in a time before tweed-clad boys went multi-platinum, acoustic guitars leading the way in a mix making space for accordion, brass and banjo, the Australian singer’s warm tones are easily the equal of any crossed-over artist. Working with the trio of Gill Sandell, Anna Jenkins and Jo Silverston – The Red Clay Halo – Barker adopts a point-man position for some wonderful four-part harmonies which envelope the listener, each vowel draped in the finest velvet.
Barker has already begun to make the right inroads – lead single Little Deaths, a delightfully woozy composition with an airiness that belies its portentous lyrical content ("It’s the little deaths of ideas / That dash me against the rocks"), has enjoyed support beyond folk circles, and her pre-Red Clay Halo releases were recommended by John Peel. Nostalgia, the opening track on Barker’s 2008 LP Despite the Snow, was used as the theme tune to BBC 1’s Wallander, and subsequently won a Bafta. With such fine groundwork laid, Almanac’s 11 tracks of pirouetting melodies, entrancing lyrics and overarching tone of endearing honesty will, surely, guide the singer to a greater level of recognition still. Everything’s here to make it so, certainly.
From the bucolic build that opens Billowing Sea, via the mournful strings of Dancers – which, again, treads a lyrical path to bodies of water – to the sumptuous climax of Bones, a song capping the album’s greatly graphical wordplay with talk of "a wound of a thousand cuts", this is a dream of a record. So perfectly formed is it that, chances are, the listener will need to go around again immediately, to make sure they weren’t imagining anything. A new Marling, then? No, Barker offers something else – vocals that soar and arrangements that shine, but all the time anchored by a strong, sincere respect for the heritage behind an inevitable rise.
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Australian-born Emily Barker who now plies her trade in the UK is best known for her song “Nostalgia”, the theme for a British TV adaptation of the Swedish Kurt Wallander novels. Without the Wallander connection, Barker with her fab trio of Gill Sandell, Anna Jenkins, and Jo Silverston, who all make up The Red Clay Hero would find it hard to raise themselves above the parapet. That is no criticism of their music, more an observation on the state of the music industry. With it, well, who knows.
Almanac is the quartet’s third album. It has an arresting cover; a watercolour by artist Daniela Terrazzini that captures the vibrancy of life yet suggests the shadow of darkness is close by. It’s a hard act to follow but Almanac lives up to the graphics, delivering beauty and truth in equal measure. Musically, it shows a developing maturity; the kind that comes from the getting to know you of gigging and the mutual respect of equal peers. It’s rooted in traditional folk but embraces influences from classical to contemporary.
Lyrically, hope and renewal are steady themes but there’s also a broader canvas that extends to historical material, heartbreak, fellowship, and communion with nature. Barker’s songwriting is set in the folk tradition but her vocal command goes way beyond usual folk boundaries. Her voice rises and falls like the wind, has moments of fragility matched by strength and will. As a writer, she has the skill of setting bitter-sweet recollections beside sparky melodies and rhythms that suggests she’s moved on. Opener “Billowing Sea” demonstrates this perfectly: you can tap your feet to a line like “Don’t know why I held onto something that’s been broken for so long.” Equally, she can turn her hand to documentary narratives as in “Witch Of Pittenween” and “Bones” and play a straight bat.
There’s hardly a weak song here but several stand out: “Billowing Sea”, the lilting “Reckless”, dreamy “Pause”, rolling “Calendar”, and the consummate ensemble work of “Little Deaths”. The instrumental interplay is a delight and when all four come together and harmonise it’s pure ambrosia.
Recommended.
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1. (00:03:43) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Billowing Sea
2. (00:04:53) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Reckless
3. (00:03:46) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Ropes
4. (00:04:19) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Little Deaths
5. (00:03:00) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Dancers
6. (00:03:46) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Pause
7. (00:02:50) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Openings
8. (00:03:23) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Calendar
9. (00:03:57) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Light
10. (00:03:31) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Witch of Pittenweem
11. (00:04:00) Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo - Bones
Playing Time.........: 00:41:08
Total Size...........: 244.00 MB
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Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.0 (DR)
Analyzed: Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo / Almanac
Number of tracks: 11
Codec: FLAC
Official DR value: DR8
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(FLAC)
