Why 'The Lark Descending'? | About the tracks | Press | Order now
Why
'The Lark Descending'?
When I appeared on Verity Sharp's Late Junction program back
in April she asked me where the title came from. As the album is my first
solo I had no established template to work to so the whole thing was like
an infant who knows it wants to get to the other side of the room but
has no technique for getting there, just bags of will. It was only after
the album was near to finished that I started becoming receptive to a
possible title and the title presented itself in the form of a John Dipper
comment after a particularly awful rehearsal:
Me - "Well that was crap, don't you think?"
John - "Hmmm... definitely the lark descending."
'The
Lark Descending' is an 'English' icon turned on its head.
Let's go back to a time when there was no 'England' and there were no 'English'. A class of people came along and decided they wanted to rule over this place and these people but before they could rule over somewhere they needed to give it a name. And before they could govern the people who lived there they had to give them a name too. 'England' and 'the English' were a necessary construction for a governing class and remain so to this day.
June: Radio 3 World Roots Playlist No. 1
July: fRoots Playlist No. 1
August: MOJO Folk album of the month
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info@englishacousticcollective.org.uk
Chris Wood is represented by Alan Bearman Music • 0208 347 4200
'The Lark Descending' celebrates a few of the stories of the people who are governed and you ought not to be surprised at how rich and compelling some of the stories are. Our indigenous population have been unravelling the universe for us in music and song for millennia while the governing class have been ridiculing our folk music for only a couple of hundred years. Back to Top
Press
MOJO | The
Times | The Observer | The
Irish Times | fROOTS
MOJO
Entirely solo Wood offers a uniquely sensitive meeting of old
and nu folk.
A lot of wimpy garbage is being hailed as part of a brave new world for
folk music - they might want to listen to this guy. In a warm, dark brown
voice with sparse, minimalist accompaniment, Wood is an intimate storyteller,
applying such nuance and gravitas to every phrase you are imperceptibly
lured into his world. Some of the stories are old - John Barleycorn, Our
Captain Calls and, especially, Lord Bateman are familiar traditional tales
born anew with fresh, bold arrangements. Yet what perhaps marks this album
as one of the best of the year is Wood's own songs. Whether about his
daughter (Hard), suicide (Albion) or a chip shop (one in a million), he
seamlessly knits the spirit of the tradition into his very contemporary
parables. And it's magnificent.
Colin
Irwin
The
Times
...it is his own compositions, which share the same timeless quality as
Richard Thompson's best writing, that make this CD special. Most striking
of all is Albion.
Nigel
Williamson
The
Observer Music Monthly
The unshowy charm of The Lark Descending has emerged on to the folk scene
like a gentle, shy bird, to be greeted with widespread chirps of acclaim.
Wood, a Kentish teacher, reveals himself to be a talented interpreter
of traditional material on the organic 'John Barleycorn', but it's his
own bewitching treatises, played on fiddle and acoustic guitar, that prove
particularly engrossing. The likes of 'Hard" and 'Albion" are
rooted in the English folk tradition, albeit refracted through Wood's
reflections on political disaffection and familial love. It's a lyrical,
pensive album, shaped by his plangent vocal and possessed of a timeless
quality.
Sarah
Boden
The
Irish Times
Solo recordings don't come more solitary than this one form the Renaissance
man of English folk, Chris Wood. His is a world populated by glorious
minor chords, life-affirming songs and stomach-churning tales of urban
decay. It's a stark terrain he navigates, melding his own tales of fatherly
affection (Hard) and alienation (Albion) with an uncannily timely reading
of the traditional Our Captain Calls all Hands, a four-minute distillation
of the idiocy of warfare. "How can you go abroad fighting for strangers?"
a question as apt in Downing Street as it is in dimly lit folk clubs.
Wood's ferocious musicality is everywhere: from the fiery cello scaffolding
John Barleycorn to the somnolent guitar of Bleary Winter. Unapologetically
and quintessentially English - and unmissable.
Siobhan
Long
fRoots
July
Mixing his own extraordinary songs seamlessly into exhilarating adaptations
of traditional material, this is unquestionably one of the albums of the
year. He has a deceptively laid-back style, an entirely solo album of
seemingly straightforward accompaniments but he invests the words with
such gravitas - even the more comedic lines - that you are instantly sucked
into the narrative. The seriousness of the approach doesn't always equate
with the mood of the song and initially creates the impression of an ultra-heavy
album - the warmth, charm and pride of a father's love for his daughter
in the opening track Hard, is initially deflected by the solemn delivery
before the full impact of the lyrics seeps through. But as we become accustomed
to his style and adjust to the persuasive directness of his singing, we
enter an intimate, inclusive atmosphere of gentle intelligence that is
very special.
The greatest challenge for any contemporary folk song is does it bear comparison to a traditional song? Having made a fine art out of arranging trad songs in a fresh manner - his wondrous arrangement of Lord Bateman previously featured on a Wood, Wilson & Carthy album and controversially used by Jim Moray is included - Wood knows very well those stringent demands. He meets them all with the extraordinary Albion, a disquieting tale which tells of finding a hanged man on a tree and relating it to Thatcher's Britain.
It's also an album that holds together far more tightly than most, almost thematic in the way the songs weave into each other amid a running overview of English life. Albion is followed by Bleary Winter, one of two songs written with Hugh Lupton, commentating further on a bleak aspect of cultural history; and he follows Lord Bateman with his second Hugh Lupton collaboration, One In A Million, which also centers around someone called Bateman (and his daughter Peggy Sue!). This Bateman runs a fish and chip shop and the very modern parable Wood gradually unveils with patent relish is worthy of Richard Thompson, so vivid the characters and so cinematic the narrative. An epic that runs for nearly 10 minutes, it must surely be in the frame for song of the year.
On slightly more familiar territory, he also turns out committed versions
of Our Captain Calls All Hands and John Barleycorn before ending in relatively
rousing fashion with the life-affirming Walk This World With Music. With
a radically different treatment it could be an anthemic chorus song to
end them all, but with a trundling fiddle, Wood chooses to offer it as
a clarion call of optimistic defiance that offers a stirring coda to the
bleakness that is a key ingredient to all that's gone before. It leaves
you with plenty to think about.
Colin
Irwin
Track
Notes
1. Hard
I was sat up watching Jimi Hendrix night on channel 4. Just me and the
dog and a couple of beers and it included some super 8 footage taken from
the back of a Limo. Hendrix was riding up front with the driver and between
them was a beautiful California blond head of hair. The man with the camera
must have said something because the girl suddenly turned around and in
a split second, something inside me decided she looked just like my daughter
would look if she was to grow up and start knocking around with Jimi Hendrix!
Who knows how the brain works at 2am but one thing is for sure, she would
have given Jimi Hendrix a run for his money.
2.
Albion
Another true story. This track lead to a brief courtship with Warner Classics
but we soon both realised our inherent incompatibility before any damage
was done and went our separate ways. Both incidents are true, the young
man and the twittering Mums discussing which school they would be sending
their children to (Kent still has the eleven plus).
3. Bleary Winter
A Wood/Lupton collaboration for Sian Croos's Norwich-based choir Big Sky
this commission was originally arranged in four parts. The English Acoustic
Collective has also recorded a version on the GHOSTS album of last year.
4.
Lord Bateman
This is a song I have lived with for nearly 20 years. Anyone
coming up through the school system in Kent during the 1960's and 70's
would have known all about Thomas Becket. It's considered a local story
down here and we were all taken on school trips to the Cathedral. As a
choir boy I got to sing in the Cathedral and with hindsight I now realise
it was some of the finest music making I've ever done.
Martin Carthy was a great help with filling in much of the background
detail. I have an old answerphone tape message of him whittering on about
different versions in different books. It is all that wonderful detail
that comes with this sort of material which makes the research at least
as compelling as the music.
5.
One in a Million
The second Wood/Lupton collaboration. Hugh sent me a set of words which
he had written as a ballad and asked me to put a tune to them. This is
not the sort of tune I think he was looking for but it seems to work well.
Verity Sharp was very taken with the relationship between the words and
music and also had the vision to ask me to sing the two songs together
(preferably in one take) when I did her Late Junction session. I do have
a modus operandi when it comes to writing music for lyrics. I try hard
to make sure there is nothing else much in my head and then turn over
the page for the first time. I'll be very trusting of any first reactions
and then I'll go through a few times more, often with a dictaphone or
something. Then let it sit for a few weeks. Then do it.
Ian Anderson - Editor, fRoots Magazine
6.
Our Captain Calls All Hands
This comes from Topic Records' 20 CD set 'THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE'
and was sung by Pop Maynard at Copthorne, Sussex in 1956. Norma Waterson
steered me towards this song with understanding and generosity. It is
of course the tune which was later squared up and used for the hymn He
Who Would Valiant Be. The tune is so full of soul and the words too but
there is one line which I feel explains what is behind so much of 'England's'
history - 'How can you go abroad fighting for strangers?'
7.
John Barleycorn
As I say in the sleeve notes for the album, this song was learnt by acompanying
Martin Carthy as he sang it night after night on a tour a couple of years
back. It just sank in and wouldn't let go. What's really great about it
is that it just sits right into the guitar and swaggers (though I've only
discovered that since the recording). I have sung this song in Eire and
been told that there is no tradition of the song, the character or the
imagery.
8.
Walk This World
This was supposed to be a commission for a choir but they never found
the money so I wrote it for myself and they got to sing it anyway. It's
not finished. If you think you have a verse or two you'd like to add then
have a go. Back to Top
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