Track Listing:
- Felton Lonnin
- Lull I
- Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk
- I Wish
- Blue's Gaen Oot O'the Fashion
- Lull II: My Lad's a Canny Lad
- Blackbird
- Lull III: A Minor Place
- Sea Song
- Whitehorn
- Lull IV: Can't Stop It Raining
- My Donald
- Ma Bonny Lad
- Fareweel Regality
- Newcastle Lullaby
EMI
The Bairns
Rachel Unthank and the Winterset
A melancholic air permeates this album, a melancholy that is missing in all too much contemporary folk music. It's the melancholy at the heart of the human condition, a quality that is as timeless as the air we breathe, and every bit as essential.
Much is made of the Unthank sisters Geordie roots, yes there are the accents and songs that are firmly rooted in north eastern culture, but there is something far larger than that at work here. There is an overriding quality of ambition, ability and achievement within this work that makes it world class. A lot of it resides in that melancholy, something you'd expect in, say, Siegfried Sassoon's poetry that spoke of the First World War or Michael Ondatje's most harrowing descriptions of powerless loss in The English Patient. You wouldn't expect it from a group of musicians so young and fresh faced.
The musical arrangements are beautiful, taking unexpected turns that confound and reward the listener. Strings that swell and caress with a touch that is never overdone; piano riffs that can summon a tear as easily as a smile; a use of space within the production that brings the parts together and gives them the time to shine and be appreciated.
The 'trad arr' is well served, dishing up the customary slew of loss, abandonment and death, but it feels so fresh that you appreciate it on a new level. Their voices work together perfectly, it's more like different inflections of the same voice rather than four separate people. Mention should be made of Belinda O'Hooley's piano playing, it takes on a life of it's own and becomes another voice across the whole album.
A gorgeously melancholy and sensual album that has raised the bar several notches.
Iain Hazlewood