Climate change, political extremism and the dignity of working-class life are all themes that run through Taylor’s new album, First Light, one drenched in disillusionment while seeking for hope.
His new album offers a sober and deeply personal meditation on placing him among the most compelling voices in contemporary European roots music. It’s far from an immediate listening experience, favouring complex and low key arrangements rather than cashing hooks and choruses, opening with piano and Brian Standefer’s cello the gateway to the title track, Mike Seal on double bass, seeking a note of optimism in the regenerative powers of nature (“The sky cracks/And moon fades/Inside the dark/Light cascades/The dawn breaks/And stars ache/As sunrise takes/Our breath away”).
Laying down a bluesy jazzy groove that calls John Martyn to mind, Taylor’s voice a breathy husk, ‘Artificial Intelligence’ sketches a picture of a broken society where “Botox, Insta and TikTok/Programme us how to look/Makes us vote for a racist crook”, variously mentioning Elon Musk (“Nazi saluting pig”), Andrew Tate, Murdoch, Zuckerberg and Bezos as he talks of a world where “You can be a fucking idiot/But think that you are smart”.
Just under six minutes, again with double bass and Justin Carroll on Hammond, slow bluesy piano ballad ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ lays down the sarcasm and irony in its scathing account of a “broken down island where only the rich win” and “racism and hatred is foaming at the mouth” and you can “get yourself elected if you wear a Union Jack”. Allowing himself a musician’s acidic barb in “music venues closing down and tribute bands are all around”, the lyrics pull no punches (“Simon says sweetie pie open up your gown …Prince Andrew misses Epstein his millionaire pimp… The future turned septic, Farage is everywhere/From celebrities in the jungle to a parliamentary chair…from Rule Britannia Tommy Robinson’s little thugs”) as he spits out “scapegoats , xenophobes , stop the boats , make us choke, riots smoke, wasted votes, I’m proud as woke , what say you?”.
The first of two covers, sung in Spanish with a suitably Latin rhythm arrangement that features Edina Balczo on rhythm guitar, Chris Woods on lead and the ever reliable Paulina Szczepaniak anchoring things with her drums, ‘Manifiesto’ comes from Chilean left wing songwriter and activist Victor Jara, the other, arriving as the penultimate track, being a guitar hand percussion and smokily whispered spooked version of Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ with Richard Moore providing violin solo.
Ben Walker on electric guitar and Michael Buckley on sleazy sax, carrying shades of Kurt Weill, the menacingly loping ‘Little Donny Returns’ is his update sequel to 2017’s Trump skewering ‘Little Donny’ (“Tiny hands, tangerine skin/Evil on the outside and cruel within/The law does not apply/Little Donny will always lie …Like a dog without a bone/Son without a gun/Xenophobic deportations/Mar-a-Lago abominations”) with its prayer that the star-spangled banner “long may it wave/O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
Another percussive jazzy groove with Walker’s guitar and Standefer cello, ‘Seeds’ is witness to a world where “they execute journalists/Butcher hospitals merciless/Brag about it all online/Ethnic cleansing before our eyes/Every day children dying”, but, paraphrasing the quote from Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos, raises the beacon of hope in a future generation with “when they buried us/They didn’t know we were seeds/Inside the wreckage”.
Pulling the claws back in, a co-write with Seal, etched on acoustic guitar, ‘Everything’ is a simple, stripped back love song (“You are all I need/You are everything to me /Inside the night/I will be here for you/Beyond the light/I will be there for you”). I may be wrong but I’m sure I can hear musical echoes of ‘I’ll Fly Away’.
Taylor on guitars and piano accompanied by Seal, ‘The Shield’ addresses the modern era’s addiction to mobile phones and how they are barriers to rather than facilitators of interaction with others (“we can be cosy inside our chains/We can turn off the use of our brains/We can live a virtual reality/We can download every fantasy”) where “through this endless echo chamber/Those that we love we forget”.
The second co-write with Seal, riding a Brubeckian jazzy bass and piano riff with clicking percussion, ‘Poverty’ is, Carroll on Hammond with on backing vocals, an ode to the working class that taps common prejudices and memes (“Wetherspoons and betting shops/Single mums and killer cops/Curfews and ankle tags/Cheap booze and dodgy fags/The tower blocks of bliss/With broken lifts of piss”) and instead gives up the reality of a life where “We are skint and we are beat/One pay cheque away from the street”.
It ends where it began with, Alan Cook on pedal steel and Brighton beach providing the sound effects, the five-minute fingerpicked walking rhythm and dobro of the celebratory Appalachian-flavoured ‘Murmurations’ and its themes of resilience (“We are all little creatures/Trying to find shelter… Looking for the warmth of a home/A safe place not to feel alone”) and the wonder of the natural world (“Sometimes there is too much beauty to take/Sometimes I feel that my heart might break”) with its prayer “Love inside this world please never die”.
First Light is a generally laid back and understated affair where the colours seep out rather than being painted in broad strokes, but its dawn still come up like thunder.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: www.seantaylorsongs.com
‘Little Donny Returns’ – official video:
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