Tag: The Suthering

The Suthering’s new album, Leave A Light On, is a burning bush collection of beautiful folk songs plaited with guitar, piano, fiddle, and sublime harmony voices. Indeed, Juju Irving and Heg Brignall “will bring you the fire”.

The first song, ‘Maggie’, is fused with melodic defiance. The lyric, “May the strength that holds us together/Overcome that which would tear us apart” sheds the same hope as Robert Burns/Dick Gaughan’s ‘Both Sides Of The Tweed’. The brilliant video marches with “Maggie’s clarion call” as it “echoes over the land”, so “Tear down these lands till our sisters are free”. The song touches the lucid soul of Leon Rosselson’s song ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ with the sympathetic words, “The earth divided we will make whole/So it will be a common treasury for all”. Juju and Heg sing from the moorland mystery of Dartmoor, with the deep-rooted Meavy Tree wisdom.

And ‘Warrior’ gets stridently tough with the proclamation that “She is a warrior” – as “her horse was bridled ready to ride” with “locks of hair flying loose in the wind”. The dual vocals touch early Kate Bush’s innocence, juxtaposing the song’s powerful theme with its desire to “grip the reins”, “embrace the night” with “eyes of steel”, and a promise that “she’ll take you under”.

My friend, Kilda Defnut, said, “These women are strong female voices, just like those Greek Sirens who got a bad rap in yet another male testosteronic mythological tale”.

I suppose she has a point: The wily hero (but not-so-faithful) Odysseus and his ear-waxed men barely survive the peril posed by a few women who happen to sing a pretty great song and live on an island surrounded by a sailor-unfriendly dangerous rocky shore. And really, all Odysseus did was brag and fall asleep way too often, let his men open a big airbag that blew him way off course, party with the Lotus Eaters, then steal from and pop the solitary eyeball out of the poor Cyclops dullard Polyphemus. In contrast, Circe was a magical enchantress. Good for her! And Calypso (to almost quote the Rolling Stones) kept Odysseus (and his turned-to swine crew) “under her thumb”.

That said, Juju and Heg sing yet another pretty great Siren song. Good for them!

The pace slows with silk-spun delicacy, but that “fire” burns with fervent introspection. ‘Past Life’ contemplates (with gorgeous voices) “This old house we built on memories.” The past can be a tough portrait. Then, ‘Silhouette’ is a graced song that lingers on the precipice of a lost memory. The song’s depth mulls the need to “light a candle” as “A bird skimmed the water”, amid the need to “retrace my steps”. This tune burns an intense inner psychological insight. And the piano pulse continues. ‘When You Go’ (with more sublime vocal harmonies) adds a nicely juxtaposed comfort.

It’s just an idea, and to make another feminine mythological allusion, the ever-faithful Penelope, possibly, wove similar tunes into her twenty-year tapestry.

That also said, Juju and Heg aptly chose the name, Suthering, as it is “the sound of wind through the trees”. These songs are intelligent, introspective, and melodic, crafted by intelligent and introspective women, who also have a blessed sense of harmonic melody. And that “wind” blows through ‘Down To The Sea” as it continues with more piano ebbtide touch and sublime vocals that capture the ancient theme of haunted lovers lost at sea, with the final line, “Bring all your sorrows”. The tune breathes with a memory of (the great!) Sandy Denny. Then, ‘Threads’ continues the piano pulse, with yet another psychological labyrinth that’s “just trying to get the thread to hold”. The tune is ripe with metaphor, like an Emily Dickinson poem. Nice, again! ‘Normandy’, too, is a lover’s litany to a diminished memory with “dreams that are falling down”. The song is a desolate reflective prayer.

These Sirens’ songs continue to lure the listener: The sprawling ‘Mountain’ (with the dramatic violin!) echoes the same theme: The mountain metaphor is ripe with the idea that “patterns are unfolding”. And the vocals twist and turn with the amazing “rushing and racing currents” that “don’t stop”. Then, ‘Ghosts Of Winter’ discovers the acoustic purity of sainted folk music, and perhaps, even touches, for a moment, the soul of Phil Ochs’s ‘When I’m Gone’. This is sheer razorblade beauty. The final acapella song, ‘Seagull Of Land-Under-Waves’, is a featherbed resolution to an unrepentant song, redeemed here, with no turbulent rocks, no male testosteronic tale, and just our ‘Maggie’, who sings, with an open-ended offer, with a modern feminine Promethean power, an eternal tune with that burning bush message, “And when we rise up we will bring you the fire”.

Bill Golembeski

Artists’ website: https://www.suthering.com/

‘Maggie’ = official video: