Album Review: Thirty Pounds Of Bone - I Cannot Sing You Here, But For Songs Of Where
- Written by Kenneth McMurtrie
Album number three from Johny Lamb in his Thirty Pounds Of Bone guise is not an immediately easy work to get a grip on but perseverance with it will be repaid.
An album dealing with themes of finding a place (or more than one) in the world and the journeys taken in the course of doing so, its tunes will seep into your being as you get used to the strong part in them that instruments both traditional and specially constructed for the project, play in giving traditional folk song types a left of centre shift.
On opening track 'Veesik For The Broch' he employs a drone constructed from an accordion and machinery normally used by Shetland boatbuilders whilst elsewhere a home recording in his static caravan makes full use of the storm raging outside. In a time when folk is being pushed to the masses by labels backing essentially a pop version played by clean cut young chaps with well conditioned nails, Lamb's obvious reverence for the often neglected song types he has recorded is refreshingly coupled with a modernising musical influence that is one hundred percent respectful to the tradition.
Lamb has in the past sailed 600 nautical miles and recorded a song for each leg of the trip (for full details click here) but on the new album travel is more often than not land-based, as when he records the dislocation of touring Europe in 'The Snow In Kiel' or the more personal journey to visit his mother's childhood home - 'The Ballad Of Cootehill'.
Whilst you won't find much here that will encourage you to dance a jig (other than maybe 'The Streets I Staggered Down') Lamb and his collaborators (who include Darren Hayman and Scott Maple & Al Nero of fellow Armellodie Records act Le Reno Amps) have created an emotionally rewarding piece of work that although seemingly chilly in fact has a glowing heart.
I Cannot Sing You Here, But For Songs Of Where is out on May 6 and available from amazon