Tag: Folk Mellotronica

A variation on his folktronica approach to traditional folk, as the title suggests this time Ian Churchward has opted to feature the mellotron on the chosen songs, all bar three traditional numbers, alongside the usual guitar, drums and occasional bass.

A brace from the canon get things underway with Jay Brown adding vocals to a mid-tempo sea shanty take on ‘The Coast Of High Barbary’, complete with a mock cannon fire close, followed by a steady-paced bass-anchored ‘High Germany’ with Jules Jones singing lead on the verses. There’s a mix of the familiar and more obscure, the former ably represented by a suitably doomy medieval flavoured reading of ‘The Unquiet Grave’, with Jones singing the woman’s part of the narrative as well as duetting on a walking-paced singalong sway through ‘Yarmouth Town’. More traditional by association, the mellotron earning its stripes, a Bunyan’s ‘To Be A Pilgrim’, Elaine Churchward on backing vocals, should have them swaying in the pews with a vaguely staccato rhythm evoking country church bells.

While the title has been changed, the swayalong ‘Her Thing Is Her Own’ is, in fact, the 18^th century ballad ‘My Thing Is My Own’ set to the tune of ‘Lilliburlero’ with an air of a winter carol, but sung from a male perspective, the mellotron making a fair impression of a crumhorn. A song dating from the American Civil War and more commonly sung in the voice of a Confederate soldier pining for home and sweetheart, here ‘Rebel Soldier’ again gets a third person narrative in Churchward’s deep vocals. It’s bookended by the two remaining traditionals, the first , still of a 19th century military inclination but shifting to the British Army, ‘The Jolly Die Hards’ with its slow drumbeat and a wheezing marching beat is the regimental song of the 57th (West Middlesex) regiment of foot. Remaining jolly, it ends with the second, ‘The Jolly Miller’, having its origins in the Chester area and sometimes known as ‘The Miller Of The Dee’ and, originally part of Isaac Bickerstaffe’s 1762 play, Love In A Village, going on to become a children’s nursery song.

However, the gem of the collection has to be another children’s song, written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work, who also wrote ‘Marching Through Georgia’, and now something of an evergreen, Churchward capturing the chiming joy and exuberance of ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’.

The mellotron bringing a distinctive flavor to proceedings without detracting from the organic roots, Folk Mellotronica  is his fourth album this year (fifth if you include his one with Jules Jones) and 34th overall, each wonderfully idiosyncratic in their own way with many deeply steeped in English history. Long may the legend persist.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: www.soundclick.com/thelegendarytenseconds