Having focused his last album, Carved In Bone, on the experience of years exploring the countryside of his native Shropshire, Day’s expanded his horizons somewhat with the follow-up, recorded on the hoof (largely on valve desks and two-inch tape), fuelled by his tours and travels through Finland, Greece, Thailand, the USA and China.
His voice has been described as a mix of Scott Walker and Jim Morrison, but, listening to the opening number, ‘Café In The Valley Of The Fire Church’, a musical travelogue recorded at a motel in the Blue Ridge Mountains and featuring overdubs from Simon Smith on string bass, the comparison that more readily comes to mind is Bruce Cockburn, one which extends to the guitar work and melody too.
Staying Stateside, ‘Sea Full Of Birds’ was put down on Ocracoke Island, enroute to a music festival in North Carolina, and, featuring whistle, has a definite sense of the salty sea air to its story about oystercatchers and those met along the road. Recorded in both Jutland and Belarus, ‘A Book Of Hours’ is a romantic reverie which recalls the troubadour days of the late 60s and features samples from Minsk’s St Sofia Cathedral Choir, then it’s back across the ocean to Santa Fe saw the birth of ‘Ton Tussa Solas’ (or, if you can handle the full Gaelic, ‘Ton Tussa Ta Tu Cosuil Leis An Solas’) with its tapped fretboard percussion, string bass and vague hints of John Martyn with another lyric about ships in the night.
Another number recorded in two locations, here Copenhagen and Helsinki, the almost mantra-like guitar pattern of ‘Sita’s Last Dance’ gives way to a chiming tremelo guitar solo overdub by Gavin Monaghan as, again evoking Cockburn, Day sings about raging at the day that brings bidding farewell. Musically, things shift dramatically for ‘An Onnagata Komi Infest My Forest’, a track recorded on a Hong Kong rooftop, which may account for the distorted vocal sound, and, with its hand bells, singing bowl and what sounds like a koto, creates a very spiritual mood.
Recorded in the Gulf of Mexico, ‘Shallow Ground’ is a slow, melancholic version of the traditional sea shanty, sometimes known as ‘Sally Brown’, the lyrics recast to incorporate personal memories, especially those of his grandfather who died in the Caribbean in WWII. Another non-original, ‘Innocence Again’, recorded in Minnesota, was written by Paul Wassall with lyrics by Robert Lake, a singer friend of Day’s who contracted a wasting disease that condemned him to a wheelchair and an early grave, an impassioned performance with a full band backing.
Returning home, ‘Darkling Sky ‘was recorded in Shropshire as, backed by Smith’s double bass, he looks back over the journey and the experience of returning, and the inevitable changes that have given the stars above “a little strangeness in their sparkle, like the face of a lover, lost and found again, both reassuringly familiar and excitingly altered.”
A sort of musical equivalent to Ewan McGregor’s The Long Way Round, but with a guitar rather than a motorbike, it captures both the sense of place and the human dimension of being both intoxicated by the new and unknown, yet somehow rootless and searching at the same time. Quite remarkable.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: http://www.jonathanday.net/
‘Sea Full Of Birds’:
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