Beth Jeans Houghton - Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

It must be desperately frustrating to be an artist in Beth Jeans Houghton’s position. After releasing a widely lauded EP way back in 2009, she’s had to endure the feeling of rapidly dwindling momentum as she’s waited somewhere around two full years between the recording of her debut LP and its eventual release. Luckily, the two years in the bread bin haven’t left these songs feeling stale, and that’s because these songs weren’t using current trends as a crutch; the album doing just as much to resist the then-prevalent nu-folk revival as it does to conform to it. To be sure, this fairy-dust sprinkled collection of finger picked songs would have comfortably nestled into the cleft carved out by Noah/Marling/Flynn et al. back in 2009, but the album’s closing stomp-rock number (ending with a gang vocal shout of “fuck off”) sounds like a preemptive response to critics who would dismissively shoehorn her onto this bandwagon.

One of the main ways in which Houghton separates herself from that stable of artists is the fact that there’s a vein of whimsy running through her tracks - silliness never spilling into wackiness - as opposed to the often po-faced self seriousness associated with the nu-folk revival. (If you hadn’t already suspected this from the name of her backing group - The Hooves Of Destiny - the title of the album itself must surely have tipped you off). Whilst frequently being back-boned by the rat-a-tat of military drum beats, these songs never sound aggressive or confrontational. Despite her instrumentation taking a resolutely kitchen sink approach to arrangement, there’s always a lightness of touch to these songs. As the chorus of ‘Humble Digs’ jolts in out of nowhere with heavy drum kicks, overwrought strings and a cacophony of voices, it’s incredible to notice that it doesn’t sound bombastic or overbearing - never mind how these textures stack up, the vibe remains airy and wistful. These are songs which feel unrestrained to dart down alleys, zig zag around chasing their own tails (breaking into an where-the-fuck-did-that-come-from spoken word middle eight in 'Atlas', for example), never paying any heed to received wisdom that folk should follow certain structural and textural conventions; never taking themselves too seriously.

But no matter where Houghtonn wanders off to, she’s never too far from a dizzying little chorus - the waltzing dip of 'Nightswimmer', or the jaunty trot of 'Veins' both demonstrating a killer instinct for lilting melody and burrowing refrains. This is the key to what’s most impressive of all about Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose: how coherent this collection sounds considering its multicoloured and sporadic delivery. The obvious reason for this album’s ultimate success is that Houghton’s raw material of solidly constructed folk songs were of a high enough quality to withstand her playfully, but relentlessly, poking at them; draping them with the sorts of silly voices, horse-trot rhythms and blind alley mid-sections which could have easily ruined them if the songs were just wispy something-and-nothings to begin with. But thankfully, Houghton is just as good of a songwriter and vocal performer as she is an anti-folk mad professor, meaning that these breezy songs come out shimmering; a joy to hear; a three-years-too-late antidote to 2009.