Tag: The Changeling

The Village, aka Phil Matthews, has made regular appearances in these pages. Now, with The Hollow Hills he dedicates a whole album to the sort of material that first attracted me to his music. This album is a suite of songs concerning the myths and legends of Britain and there are two ways to approach this, I suppose. One is to go all prog-rock with massed Mellotrons and falsetto vocals and the other is to write contemporary sounding songs which, if required, can be performed solo with an acoustic guitar. Phil opts for the latter although he does get suspiciously proggy on ‘The Banshee’s Cry’ but that merely emphasises his musical versatility. He does admit to employing drum loops, though.

Phil describes the title track, which opens the set as the gateway to the album for that is where the strange folk dwell. The first two are relatively playful. There is the ‘Will O’The Wisp’ flitting across the moor but beware – if you follow one you’ll regret it – and then we are advised that ‘You Can’t Live With A Boggart’ as Phil describes the antics of the Yorkshire poltergeist. He manages to make the song sound jolly and sinister simultaneously.

The joking is over when we reach ‘The Banshee’s Cry’ with its clanging tones. The banshee is portrayed here as the harbinger of a death rather than a creature to be feared. ‘The Changeling’ is built on what sounds like an old Bontempi organ as the protagonist laments his situation. Other drones are added to the otherworldly sound. ‘Witches In The Mist’ is straight out of Macbeth as our narrator encounters three dark figures around a cauldron. ‘The Thin Places’ – you know, the spots on the Earth close to other dimensions – is the only instrumental employing more plangent tones.

‘The Standing Stones’ sounds appropriately rocky but I hadn’t encountered ‘Jack O’Kent’ before so I thank Phil for the introduction. Jack is a character from the mythology of the Welsh Marches whose speciality seems to be tricking the Devil with bad bargains, a common enough theme throughout the folk tradition. In keeping with Jack’s trickery, Phil has written a jumpy tune with a touch of reggae about it. Similarly, I couldn’t find any background on ‘The Bride Of The Black Pool’ and I wouldn’t put it past Phil to have made this one up. If I’m wrong I’m sure he’ll tell me.

To bring this suite of songs to an end we have a reprise of ‘The Hollow Hills’. It’s brief, essentially an instrumental with a few spoken words to wrap everything up. This is a very enjoyable album and there is too much happening for me to detail all the musical tropes employed. The Village is the finest one-man band I know.

Dai Jeffries

Artist’s website: https://www.facebook.com/PhilMatthewsa.k.a.theVillage/?locale=en_GB

‘The Changeling’: