A mix of song and instrumentals and described as a soundscape that weaves together folk horror, remembrance, and the landscapes, both rural and urban, with themes drawn from the natural world and what lies beyond our understanding in nature and history, Hinterland is an at times progressive and experimental work. Case in point is the traditional album opener ‘Hawk & Crow’ with its percussive steady walking rhythm, plucked fiddle, foot taps and field recordings, Knapp’s voice weaving like forest cobwebs through the accounts of love failed and prevailed l using anthropomorphic birds as the narrators, the Jenny Wren advising that, if she were a man, she’d always keep a spare.
Originating from a jam session, again with a percussive platform of piano, hollow drums and hammered dulcimer, reflecting the blending of the natural and industrial, ‘Train Song’ takes an Auden-esque train journey across England’s landscapes with a stream of consciousness lyrics often just one or two words (“floodplain/Sunshine/Bare soil/Beige scrub/Green fields/Brown mud …Wire fence/Tree alone/Power lines/Metal tracks”) like sights seen from the carriage window, ending in the city with a social observation of “Poverty / Luxury”.
Inspired by an ancient archaeological find of 11,000-year-old antler headdresses at the titular Mesolithic site in North Yorkshire, ‘Starr Carr’ combines atmospheric drones of fiddle, drums and programming with her haunting vocals in an observation, of humankind’s primitive need for masks and rituals to express deep instincts (“In comes a wild hart/In comes a red deer/In comes a wild heart/Sapiens need to dance”).
Featuring just various fiddles, arranged by Diver, ‘Monaghan Jig/ Monks Jig Set is first of the two instrumentals, combining two melancholic traditional Irish jigs, the latter sometimes known as ‘Sonny Brogan’s’ on account of its association with the County Sligo accordion player. Diver bringing skeletal plucked banjo to the party, they then remain in traditional territory for the near six-minute ‘I Must Away Love’ better known as ‘The Night Visiting Song’ with its tale of nocturnal emissions and subsequent and departure, Knapp’s voice stretched high and hushedly plaintive over the sparse soundscape.
The longest at just under seven minutes, ‘Long Lankin’ should be familiar to anyone with even just a passing knowledge of English folk music murder ballads, the duo affording it a dramatic retelling with a distant metronomic rhythm, ethereal vocals and Bellowhead’s Pete Flood on skittering drums and seeds. That’s followed by the second instrumental, the spooked pulsing ‘Penumbra’, which, drawing on traditional jig patters, penned by Knapp and featuring her fiddle and Diver’s hammered dulcimer, is, as per the title inspired by the interplay of light and shadow.
The final two numbers are both arrangements of traditionals, Diver on fiddle, banjo and portative organ for ‘Loving Hannah’, a variant on the better-known spurned love ballad ‘Handsome Molly’ and ending with a six-minute rendition fiddle and piano arrangement of ‘Lass Of Aughrim’, the Irish variant of ‘The Lass Of Loch Royal’ and featured in James Joyce’s short story ‘The Dead’, telling yet again of a pregnant woman played false, the perspective shifting back and forth as the peasant girl calls at her lover’s castle and his mother imitates his voice and sends her away because of her low social status, though the lyrics here omit the suicide.
Not as challengingly experimental as some of their past work perhaps but certainly not conservative in its interpretations of the traditional genre, this hinterland is well worth exploring.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: www.lisaknapp.co.uk
‘Train Song’ – official video:
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