Last week, we brought you the inside track on the making of In Winter, the new seasonal album The Unthanks. Now, Gavin McNamara brings you his thoughts on the 70-minute long winter fantasia…
Way back in December 2009, BBC4 aired The Christmas Session, a “live” show that featured yuletide favourites from the likes of Bellowhead, Sam Lee, Jim Moray (whose O Come, O Come Emmanuel is the very highest watermark for a folky carol) and Lisa Knapp. It’s a glorious thing. Full of joy and love but reflective and thoughtful too. It is everything that a folk session at Christmas time should be and should, ideally, be watched every Christmas Eve. Right at the centre of it all were The Unthanks, only really a few years into their existence but already a vital part of the folk world.
It has taken them the best part of fifteen years but Rachel, Becky, Adrian McNally, Niopha Keegan and Chris Price have finally made the album that they’ve been thinking about since that session. They will say that In Winter is “a winter fantasia”, rather than a straight-up Christmas album, but the same feelings of love and joy, reflection and thoughtfulness are seen across its seventy-minute span. To the surprise of not a single soul, The Unthanks have made the definitive folk album for winter.
This is the sort of winter that you imagine The Unthanks having. Simple, elegant, beautiful and just a tiny but dark around the edges.
In Winter’s Night, a delicate piano piece by McNally, is inspired by, although sounds nothing like, Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and carries the same chilly air. It starts with a howling wind, insistent and bitter and needing to be shut out, McNally’s piano is the lighting of candles, the laying of a fire, the gentle welcome to join the family as the door is closed. At times it skates away – it is so hard not to hear Vincent Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown theme sometimes – but does so in a playful way. Finally, the door is shut altogether and the family can be gathered properly, to enjoy the splendour of a Christmas tree.
As In Winter is a “fantasia”, each track runs into the next, a whole world is built as one song, one tune, transitions seamlessly into the next. As such, as the door is shut, snow can be heard crunching under-foot, sleigh bells ring and a great whoosh of rolling cymbals herald O Tannenbaum. Where the first track is full of restraint, this is lavish, as dense as evergreen. Oboe and percussion mass around the voices of Rachel and Becky, it is incredibly slick and overwhelmingly Christmassy. McNally might suggest that he doesn’t want to “over-egg” this album but this reworking of O Christmas Tree feels like a party that’s too warm, too stuffed with people. There’s jollity here but it’s not undercut with enough of that Unthanks chilliness.
The same can almost be said for Dark December too. It’s a companion piece to Sad February, from 2009’s Here’s the Tender Coming, and starts more slowly, electric guitar and ice-sheet percussion, a clear, crisp spookiness in the voices. This is the sort of winter that you imagine The Unthanks having. Simple, elegant, beautiful and just a tiny but dark around the edges. More Box of Delights than endless Quality Street. Then Faye MacCalman’s saxophone sweeps in, epic and enormous. There’s something so unusual about it that it takes a while to adjust. It’s like an Easter Egg under the tree.
MacCalman has played with the band as a clarinettist on their 2017 album Diversions, Vol. 4, The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake, but she is given free rein on Carol of the Beasts. Faint shoegaze echoes, the splash of medieval drums and drones are dashed to the floor as MacCalman unleashes a wild sax volley. If Becky Unthank thinks that the saxophone is “dangerous”, then this one sends the best crockery flying.
It’s a conscious decision to expand The Unthanks’ musical palette, to move things away from the darkness and the drones. McNally feels that the players on the album are of such quality that he didn’t want to, or wasn’t able to, bury the music in a “Cocteau Twins-y wash”. It’s undoubtedly brave, the playing is certainly beautiful, but is it just too much? Does it get too close to being “just” a Christmas album?
Ironically, when the darkness is allowed to seep back in, though, The Unthanks’ Christmas takes on a glorious sheen. Gower Wassail [Roud 209] starts with a deep thunk of bass, electric guitar and the crash of cymbals before being overtaken by a solitary drum and wonderfully haunting vocals. It is slow and processional, warmly spiced with nutmeg and ginger, as a silvery oboe casts an irresistible moon-glow. Bleary Winter, too, is scuffed and burred, Rachel’s voice fades round the edges, the blur of an old photograph, it gives accent and ancient-colour. Keegan’s violin is lovely, working well with brushed drums. It’s simple even with intricate layering.
As the gaudy lights of the opening parts of the album start to fade so In Winter becomes deeply satisfying. The Snow That Melts the Soonest [Roud 3154] is said, fittingly, to have been collected on the streets of Newcastle and The Unthanks do it beautiful justice. There’s a squall to start, then Rachel’s voice, cello, violin and vibraphone provide balm for troubled times. It ends as the squall revisits but, this time, Keegan’s violin joins it, if nature is not tamed then there’s harmony at least.
In this Unthanks fantasia, there are carols too. The Coventry Carol [Roud 19028] is, surely, one of the most affecting of all pieces of Christmas music, and so it is here. The sisterly harmonies are glorious; it is spooky, drone-filled and suits The Unthanks to a tee. O Come All Ye Faithful is slow and contemplative, tinged with a Salvation Army band and breathless harmonies. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen [Roud 394] is all fireplace crackle and expectant tick of a clock while In the Bleak Midwinter [Roud 46421] has McNally at the piano and is woozy and dream-like, it is the sliding into sleep in a fire-warmed room.
Tar Barrel in Dale has been a festive Unthanks favourite for many a year. Written by their father, George, it is the story of a New Year tradition, of dressing up, of memories made. For the most part Rachel and Becky sing unaccompanied and it is, quite simply, stunning. It feels like a winter song that has been with us always.
The album ends with Dear Companions, written by Becky Unthank and Ainslie Henderson, a song of parting, one that they have used for the end of their singing weekends for years. It is as full of longing, as full of celebration of a shared journey, that you can possibly imagine. Big piano chords and massed voices, arms around the shoulders and a genuine sense of community. A new year as only The Unthanks can give us.
In Winter is, indeed, a fantasia. It is, also, utterly true to Christmas. There are times when it’s a little overwhelming, times when the lights shine too brightly but there are also moments of sheer beauty, complete joy. There are times when the stories and the people are irresistible, times for contemplation and celebration. If that BBC4 Christmas Session should be a tradition in every folk-living house, then so should In Winter. It’s the most wonderful thing.
The Unthanks – In Winter is available now a double CD, vinyl and digital from the band’s website, along with a whole host of really lovely matching merch. The Unthanks are touring throughout December.
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