Don’t go looking for trouble
Struck dumb lately it has taken me days to arrange my thoughts about this latest on the Stoney Lane label.
These are not exactly deep so far. Other far more philosophical journals are available.
But here goes with a few jottings and cuttings retrieved from the very eco friendly dustbin that is my so called mind.
First, the intrusive ones. The voice of Christine Tobin comes to me a few times listening to Sara Colman’s on more than a few tracks. That’s when Colman goes darker and more intense. Sometimes I also think of Liane Carroll’s sound when Bristolian Colman cuts the mustard more bluesily.
Thoughts of Joni Mitchell also come over especially when turning to the lyrics for example on ‘Turning Over Stones’ which while not containing such an epic melody as ‘Noble Heart’ is an even better song.
That’s not such a surprise given Colman has already released an album of Joni Mitchell work and also sings Joni in Birmingham soon.
Guest spots include most memorably trumpeter Percy Pursglove on the title track which is a complex ballad. His sound enters a Kenny Wheeler-like world which is a journey so well worth making. His wheel is also on fire.
But the core sound is shaped around Bex Nash’s very patient piano playing – which is possibly best heard in the epilogue to ‘Gardener’ and bass (Henrik Jensen who was superb on Above Your House, his latest album) who adds plenty of piquant touches. Drums from Jonathan Silk are there but aren’t that significant a presence given their role. He’s very much a Colman whisperer and the invisible threads he spins require no crash, bang, wallop stickmanship.
Trish Clowes and Iain Ballamy, two very well matched sax payers given Ballamy’s influence on Clowes in the past, both guest and add a certain drama in between. Saxophone is often muse to Colman and Nash.
A shiver runs through you – like the ‘don’t go looking for trouble’ line above – is drawn from the lyrics of ‘Turning Over Stones’
While I am still in the business of processing all the elements that make this album work so well – maybe I’ll never get there – but interim impressions so far revolve around the words first, the voice second and the arranging third. The arranging I mean in this sense gauged by how well the cast of players are used, the “wheres” and “whens” of their contributions and so on, the subtlety of the dynamics. It’s a wonderful record. Listening, digging around: a shiver does indeed run through you without any need for overthinking.
I suppose after switching this off I will go off and listen to old Quercus records (Ballamy and Huw Warren with the folk eminence June Tabor) and old Colman records. I also think of the last time I heard Colman and Nash live with Jensen and Clowes too and remember the spell cast when Clowes came on as an unbilled guest:
More reading
- Ink on a Pin 2021 review
Sara Colman gigs coming up
- 1000 Trades, Birmingham 5 March
- As part of Treyja 606, Chelsea 8 March
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