Abundance Welcoming Ghosts

Description

Whilst touring during 2018 in support of Broken Stay Open Sky, their 4th album, Red River Dialect uncovered a new depth of communication in their playing, and the follow-up bears the fruit. Abundance Welcoming Ghosts finds the British folk-rock band relaxing into a natural, playful confidence. It was recorded at Mwnci Studios (Southwest Wales), during 4 days in 2018, just a month before the bands songwriter David Morris left the UK for a 9 month meditation retreat at a remote Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia. By the time the band reached the studios, the imminent hiatus lent a poignant and celebratory atmosphere to the sessions. The compositions had not been fully formed prior to recording, but any pressure was transmuted into invigoration, resulting in the jubilant energy that adorns even the most turbulent songs. This expansiveness bears testament to the skill of long-term collaborator and guide Jimmy Robertson (Michael Chapman), who engineered and mixed the songs. Guest musicians Joan Shelley, who sings the hidden spaces on Snowdon and Piano, and Tara Jane ONeil (Rodan, the Sonora Pine), who plays sweet aching slide guitar on My Friend, complement the core sextet. Ed Sanders violin alternates between soaring with crisp highland sadness on BV Kistvaen and burying jaws into the flesh of songs like Salvation. Coral Kindred-Boothbys bass swings the anchor in deep blue fathoms, but frequently dances up to the clouds; she sings heart-swelling, radiant harmonies on My Friend. Lead guitarist Simon Drinkwater weaves spry and subtle lines just under the surface of the ocean, breaking for gasps of air and bicycle kicks, slicing the air on Snowdon and Blue Sparks. Kiran Bhatt rides the drums out to all the cardinal points, tapping high bright stars on Piano and pulsing with the circular tide on Two White Carp. Robin Stratton has one hand rummaging in the swamp around Red River and the other under a waterfall on Slow Rush; his piano and organ playing flow like water into both rhythm and lead thread of mourning that has long held sway in Morris songwriting, particularly on 2015s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue, is not fully unravelled. There are familiar questions about allegiances to caution and pensiveness, but the songs edge ever closer to abandoning restraints, including the desire to achieve coherence in meaning as some form of salvation. Regarding the title, he points to a quote attributed to the eleventh century Tibetan spiritual master Machig Labdrön, In other traditions demons are expelled externally. But in my tradition demons are accepted with compassion. The band will be re-uniting to play these songs in the latter part of 2019, when Morris hands back his monks robes and leaves the monastery, almost a year after this album was recorded. Thoughtful compositions that mix straightforward observation with naturalistic imagery and philosophical inquiry. Uncut. Beatific [but] thrillingly combustible. Morriss earnest tones crack with loss. A rare British treasure. MOJO.