There is something very satisfying about being lifted away from your own concerns and put somewhere else, about ignoring the realities and embracing an older world. Maybe it should be no surprise when a folk album seems to do this so easily, to be out of step with the rest of the world, that it exists in a fuzzy, hazy, never-world, but the fourth album by the wildly talented trio, The Wilderness Yet, does exactly that. It pushes you sideways, out of the frame, into a different place. You are wrong-footed.
Westlin Winds is an album of purely a cappella singing. Despite the presence of fine fiddler, Rowan Piggott, and virtuoso flautist, Philippe Barnes, these are nine tracks that celebrate three voices. Rosie Hodgson has already won a BBC Young Folk Singer award, has had praise heaped upon her, and it is her voice that drives this album.
Hodgson professes a love of literature and ‘Westlin Winds’, the title track, is a poem by Robert Burns, as the three voices sit together the poetic rhythms and metres, the syllables, stressed and unstressed, take on a fluidity. Words that could be dust-filled and dead flicker with life. Hodgson, Piggott and Barnes paint the colours of nature across the song, deep greens and smudged browns, chrome yellow and grey-flecked blues. A Constable painting brought to life. Her voice is high and sweet, theirs deeper and more grounded. The three create a world that is gentle, thoughtful, contemplative, it is almost a companion to The Parting Glass, it is a song of welcome rather than of leaving.
Once the scene is set, then The Wilderness Yet explore every inch of their sublime landscape. ‘The Goose and The Common’ is an Eighteenth Century protest rhyme about land rights and Enclosure. There is a quiet upset that their idealised image of nature can’t be for everyone. The 5/4 time structure lends it a rhythmic chant but there is Vaseline on the lens, it’s a soft-focus anger, the beauty of the singing not quite matching the despair of the words. Hodgson, again, is the voice that echoes in from long ago, the voice on the wind from generations past. Piggott and Barnes add richness but there are few spikes here, they create a bed of moss rather than the occasional nettle that the song seems to warrant. It might be this that is so wrong-footing, that we are so used to uncovering the realities in song and The Wilderness Yet seem determined to just give us beauty.
John Gay’s ‘Black Eyed Susan’ [Roud 560] is a gorgeous ballad, one that the winds have blown across to the Appalacians and back again. Even in a song of parting those Wilderness Yet harmonies find a loveliness, Hodgson displaying a quite remarkable control on the high notes, a comforting sweetness that becomes almost hymn-like as the male voices are added. ‘Mary and the Soldier’ [Roud 2496], learned from the singing of Paul Brady, also has a glorious rhythmic, harmonic sweetness as does ‘Adieu Sweet Lady Nancy’ [Roud 165]. Here, Hodgson is slightly more forlorn, but the sadness is painted with those romantic colours, once again. There is a slight change on ‘Cocks are Crowing’ [Roud 22568] in that Barnes takes more of a prominent role but there is still a gentleness, still a harmonious lull. This night-visiting song has a breathy rise and fall, it is filled with a dreamy slumber.
If Lady Maisery were to sing ‘Na Ceannabháin Bhána/ The Mountain Road’ we would call Hodgson’s vocal technique “diddling”, the wordless ululations forming the rhythm of the slip jig and calling to mind the incredible things that James, Askew and Rheingans can do. As the pace changes, so it becomes obvious just how much control she has over this remarkable instrument of hers. She swoops over the male bass, carving a path that, by now we are desperate to follow. It’s still hard to shake the idea of a slightly sentimentalised world but there’s an excited urgency now too. That upbeat sense comes through on ‘Byker Hill’ [Roud 3488] as well. While it might not have the unhinged clamour of Bellowhead’s version there is an undeniable sense of joy here. Perhaps it is because Hodgson learnt it from her father (via A.L Lloyd and Martin Carthy, of course) but the unrestrained “hups” that pepper it make it as vibrant as anything across the album.
As a collection of poems, old songs and trad songs, Westlin Winds has a sense of timelessness. Even on a new song, The Wilderness Yet put us into that space between then and now. ‘Chanticleer’ was, by all accounts, written on an angry car journey by Piggott and Hodgson – although you might be hard pushed to see too much fury. Where Hodgson’s voice has been to the fore for most of the album, there is balance now. The voices are given equal weight as the spirit of Reynard the Fox leaves his paw prints across the a cappella landscape. Everything else on the album has that hint of mists-and-mellow-fruitfulness but there’s a more winter-y chill to ‘Chanticleer’, a pinch of Christmas-y spice.
When art is at its very best, it can lift us up and put us somewhere else; it can tune out the noise around us and make us forget the everyday. Westlin Winds does this. It’s like touring the finest galleries to find romantic landscapes just to help you forget that yours is grey and broken. The Wilderness Yet don’t seem interested in darkness and difficulty, instead they celebrate the golden and the glorious.
Westlin Winds by The Wilderness Yet is out on July 26th and can be purchase via their website: thewildernessyet.com.
