WILL VARLEY – Postcards From Ursa Minor (XtraMile)

WILL VARLEY Postcards From Ursa MinorTipped as one of 2015’s Rising Stars by Time Out magazine, based in Deal, Kent, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter clearly has something of a determined work ethic, having toured his 2011 debut album, Advert Soundtracks, totally on foot, walking 130 miles carrying his guitar and tent, playing shows along the way. He also writes poetry and has published a political fiction novel, Sketch Of A Last Day.

Busker folk, somewhere between Billy Bragg, Dylan and Frank Turner, this is his third album and continues his propensity for, as the blurb puts it, “barely-concealed anger, or blatant piss-taking.” So, social commentary, politics and humour, then. The first is encapsulated in the reflective ‘Send My Love To The System’, the second in the early protest Dylan feel of ‘Concept of Freedom’ (which borrows the tune from either ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’ or ‘Working Class Hero’ depending on your allegiances) and all three wrapped up with ‘Anyone Out There?’, a tongue-in-cheek but pointed call to alien life forms (from whence the title comes) to rescue us from drifting through space and destroying the planet.

A metaphorical sci-fi element also informs ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’, a spare, piano-backed picture of the dark cold universe in which we live inspired by the story of Jose Matata, an African immigrant who, in 2013, was killed when he fell from the landing gear of a British Airways plane on to a London pavement in his attempt to gain entry into the UK.

Elsewhere, the mazurka-like album opener, ‘As For My Soul’, is a struggling musician’s call to make the most of life (“light a fire, drink a beer, sing a song”) while we still have it, while ‘From Halcyon’ and ‘Seize The Night’ are both nostalgic laments for times gone and friends lost, the latter addressing a recurring theme of both loneliness and restlessness (one track’s tellingly titled ‘The Endlessness and the Space Between’) as he sings “if you know where you are when you wake up, something’s wrong”.

He’s a deft storyteller as well as a keen observer, a fact underlined by the bluesy ‘Outside Over There’, a dark fairytale about a young girl’s quest into the forest to recover her abducted baby sister set against a conflation of wars and conflicts. By contrast, the rather more playful Dylanesque ‘Talking Cat Blues’ shows his surreal side as he weaves together being dumped, personal injury cold calls, Kanye West (who gets referenced twice on the album), David Cameron and YouTube cat videos, throwing in the groaning pun “no win, no felines”.

Ending with another reflective time passing, growing older number in the minimal ‘The Question of Passing Time’, its combination of spirited defiance and wearied resignation is at once fuelled by the fire of make a difference youth and the exhaustion of disillusioned middle-age, somewhat setting it apart from his contemporaries in the genre and, as such, making it far more thoughtful and affecting listening.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: http://www.willvarley.com/

‘The Concept Of Freedom’ – live in session: