Mill Lane album review

Rosie Doonan and Ben Murray

The 'contemporary' tag is over used in the folk world, virtually any folk artist making a new album is described a 'bold and contemporary', actual listening often revealing material that could have been recorded at any point in the past thirty years. But there is a core of acts producing genuinely innovative material, continuing the unbroken thread of folk music's relevance to the times it is in, rather than being a museum piece.

Here we have ten songs of lust, love, loss and death, par for the course for most folk albums admittedly. However, this album raises the bar considerably. To a degree it redefines what can be achieved by re-interpreting trad material, and just how much emotion can be wrung out of the lyrical journey getting there.

Rosie Doonan and Ben Murray take the themes, motifs and imagery of the folk canon; lusty rural longings and trysts, mythic amorous encounters, the 'collateral damage' of bereavement and abandonment. Through this minefield they weave a path all of their own, coloured by their own human experiences and observed by two gifted singer/songwriters.

The musical arrangements involve a great selection of collaborating musicians, lending each track a distinctive feel. Need You Around and Holding On have a seductive noirish jazz rhythm that draws you close and doesn't let go. The Lusty Smith is an up tempo foot tapping affair. The vocals are never overpowered, sensitive production keeps this, their greatest asset centre stage. The most immediately striking thing on hearing this album is just how compatible their voices are, harmonically and temperamentally balanced. Whether the story is set in a bedsit in rainy London in the present day, or a ancient gaol house where the condemned man reflects on his past, Ben and Rosie wring every drop of human truth and emotional weight from their material.

The song Seal Maiden deals with the not unusual theme of the shape changing maiden, a seal that can shed it's seal skin and walk the land as a ravishing female human. She falls in love with a man and has a family by him. He knows she is of the sea and hides her seal skin so she cannot leave him. Of course, the skin is discovered and she is irresistibly drawn back to the ocean. Rosie and Ben get right to the mythic significance of the tale, it's eternal themes of the contradictory nature of love and abandonment. Themes that reach right into our modern world.

Okay, that's the love and loss bit out of the way, what about lust? Let's face it this is the subject matter of some of the best songs ever written. There's a Lusty Smith here that fits the bill perfectly, he pursues his maiden in many shape changing guises until he beds her - as a bed, well, she's changed into a bed and he into a green coverlet... Ben sings this with a distinct note of glee in his voice.

All in all a stunning debut, although they are no strangers to the business (see their profile for the background). They have a very fresh approach that has resulted in a thoroughly modern yet timeless recording

Iain Hazlewood