Variously written and recorded in Ludlow, London, Nashville and Morocco, part produced by Boo Hewerdine and Chris Pepper with other contributions from Jeremy Jameson and Ben Walsh, the Welsh songstress’s sixth album, Atlas, comes inspired by poetry, psalms, Pre-Raphaelite art and the landscapes of North Africa, America and Shropshire and features as many as 22 guest musical contributions as well as two covers.
It opens with the gently rippling title track, written in the Atlas Mountains and featuring Moroccan oud player Majid Bekkas, double bass and Walsh on violin and guitar the images of the city (“The mosques in the square are/Calling to prayer”) and the lines about the birds singing in the bougainvillea and the mountains calling out to her echoing her connection to Africa where she’s worked for many years. One of the two initial tracks she worked on with Hewerdine, the sparse and moodily ethereal piano-backed ‘Anam Cara’ is an ancient Irish monastic Gaelic term for “soul friend”, a spiritual friendship that guides you to be your true self (“Among the remnants/Of the rubble and the shards/I hear the small still voice of God/Calling home to me/Like a whisper in the dark/Hiding in the space between heaven and earth… Like a faith keeper/Of wisdom and of grace/I stand by you/You stand by me/Like a stone in its place”).
The second, written at a Mary Gauthier songwriting retreat, is ‘Rings Of Saturn’, a quietly beautiful long song that, featuring Hewerdine on dulcitone and Gustaf Ljunngren on lap steel, variously references ‘Ring A Ring o’ Roses’, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Johnny Cash and the rings on a bonsai tree as she sings “The bridges we burn can help discern/Where we belong, to those who make us strong/We fan the flame and start again”.
Inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite painting of Edward Robert Hughes and commissioned by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to play alongside the original watercolour, whisperingly sung, the puttering ‘Night With Her Train Of Stars’ doesn’t describe the work itself but, full of pastoral nature imagery, is a dreamy elicitation of the feelings of tranquillity (“The smoke ascends/In a rosy and golden haze/The spires shine and are changed/In the valley shadows rise/And the lark sings on/The sun closing his benediction”) and perhaps even death (“So be my passing/My task accomplished and the long day done/My wages are taken and in my heart /Some late lark singing/Let me gather to the quiet west”) it evokes.
Co-written with pianist Martin Riley and Christina Nichols with Rela Spyrou on clarinet, the tinklingly seasonal slowly gathering ‘On Christmas Night’ is dedicated to Deborah’s niece Ffion (foxglove in Welsh hence “I will watch you like a flower grows”) in celebration of her first Christmas, though the lines “This miracle of life, child of hope and wonder” and “a star in the east is beckoning me” could also take on a religious reading.
For three years running, Rose won a competition for her contemporary rewriting of the Psalms, which feature consecutively here. The first, John Thorne on double bass and Rose’s voice at its Welsh hymnal warbling purest, ‘Under The Feathers Of Your Wings’ draws on Psalm 9, recasting its sentiments as “in the presence of your love/There is a refuge and a fortress/Keep me from the stones, from the stony ground/Lift me up with your angel hands”. Inspired by an inmate she mentored in Wolverhampton jail, Psalm 98 is reworked as the piano and cello arranged ‘Sing A New Song’ (“Where the poor and needy/Live like kings and queens/In a world where we all believe”) while, paraphrasing the opening line and with acoustic guitar and cello accompaniment, ‘I Lift My Eyes To The Hills’ is her restyling of Psalm 121 and was recorded in Capel-y-Ffin, the oldest chapel in Wales, which is mentioned in the lyrics.
Adopting the same title as his poem, ‘Bright Field’ is a fingerpicked homage to the Welsh poet R.S.Thomas and again a celebration of the wonder of nature (“I turn aside and catch a glimpse of glory/A blazing sun on Good Friday night/The earth is crammed with heaven if you choose to look”) that manages to reference both Moses and ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’.
Departing from her own material and featuring viola, ‘Boulder To Birmingham’ has her duetting with New Yorker Kenny White on the Emmylou Harris classic, the last of the official tracks coming with ‘Living Waters’ an a cappella love letter to Wales and Shropshire inspired by John 7:38 with its mention of the rivers Ony, Teme and Clun alongside Ludlow, Clee and Knighton. It ends with a bonus track, a live echoingly sung version of the Christmas song by Mark Lowry and music Buddy Greene, ‘Mary, Did You Know?’ here reimagined with an arrangement featuring bouzouki, baglama, guitar and violin played by Stavros Kokkinos.
Her voice conjuring thoughts of Joni, Judy and Eva Cassidy, her music calm, soothing, contemplative and spiritual, Atlas is an absolute treat.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: www.deborahrose.co.uk
‘Atlas’ – official video:
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