Aka Chopper, a splendid smorgasbord to appeal to head and heart, conscience and consequence.

Release Date: 3rd May 2024

Label: Westpark Records

Format: CD / vinyl / digital

Chopper, always Chopper, even if that name has been broadly put back to bed, but easier to remember than his given, especially when confusion can be made with Elton John’s ubiquitous tambourine basher of the ’90s. For this is solo release number five for the onetime cello man from Oysterband, still on speed dial for locum duties when his replacement, Adrian Oxaal, is off playing guitar for Mancs stalwarts, James, the Sit Down hitmakers (such as at last year’s Shrewsbury Folk Fest, where he played two blinders, one, back with his old buddies and then, a day later, a set alone). Ploughing his own way, his songs are a mix of historical and social commentary, a cottage industry, largely under the radar, from his home in the Swedish outback, he has always been well worth a gander, hoping that still holds.

Extinguishing any such havers, the title track starts much where Land Of Heroes, in 2021, left off, a song about touring; with 40 solo tours under his belt, he is. bit of an expert. Road noises beckon in his guitar picking, a bass throbbing in the background. His voice, an ever stronger, album by album, instrument, is strong and confident, the slight hesitancy of old a thing of the past. Yes, it has a flavour of the Oyster’s John Jones, but a stricter, sterner element fights through. “I am just a traveller, a visitor on Europe’s roads.” A harmonium provides some warm bedding, drums kicking gently in. as the song outline his home is really the road, “even for a shadow“.

Falling Like Thunder revisits familiar territory, the delicate piano and vocal opening a deliberate sugar coat, before a spoken diatribe unveils. Our leaders, wherever and whoever, in the firing line, sometimes this sort of soapboxing can feel false or forced, or, within weeks, impossibly dated. Can I say I find this speech, for it is one, actually quite moving, perhaps, in part, courtesy the careful arrangement, piano providing the applicable marker pen. Sporadic FX distort the message at other moments: “what the Gods love is chaos.” A comparison with Chumbawamba’s Justice / No Justice is never far away, which, automatically and intrinsically, makes it a good thing. As the first saws of cello break in, I, for one, am applauding. (Bandcamp also reveals, via single version, an additional folk-punk mix, with buzzsaw guitars and the full works such a description rightly insists upon!)

Wind And Steel, a duet with Sunniva Bondesson, from Baskery, has Cooper’s vocal stretching to it’s higher register, and is a plangently cogent ballad. A brass section are the master stroke, a cross between silver band and mariachi, with harmonica an additional winsome accompaniment thereto. Apart from the brass, most the instrumentation come from Cooper. However, it is the fiddle of Ben Paley that adorns the next song, The Sky Was Black With Diamonds, inhabiting it with a delectable Devil Came Down To Georgia hue. Paley, Brighton based, is the son of Tom Paley, the New Lost City Rambler, associate of Woody Guthrie and the Seegers. With both Paleys, father in son, having interest and accomplishment in Scandi folk music, it is no surprise he and Cooper should have shared common ground. It makes for a neat change in palate.

Kathryn Roberts, yes, the Kathryn Roberts steps up for Going Underground, which isn’t The Jam anthem. A song that depicts the make or break effect of the covid lock-down on living arrangements of lovers. As with the earlier duet, it is the contast of voices that adds lustre, Robert’s tones positively spooky against Cooper’s own. A lovely little ditty, piano and cello the framework over which the voices spar. Touches of Tom Robinson’s timbre (and songwriting) are now creeping into the mix.

You’ll know the next song! A rockabilly skiffle revision of Sir Patrick Spens, which works far better than it should. Appreciating his own percussion may be insufficiently authentic, Cooper here enrols (Peter, Björn and) John Eriksson to add the necessarily primitive brushwork. Fairport it ain’t, and it is a great rollick. Sticking with trad. arr., Bonaparte’s Retreat follows, a tune that has crossed way more oceans than Boney ever strayed. It employs one further friend, Anders Peev, on nyckelharpa. With Cooper playing the Finnish zither, or kantele, and harmonium, it gives a fresh Nordic slant on this old staple. Black Is The Colour is no stranger, either, a further and final duet. Starting with Cooper in near sprechgesang, over a strummed guitar, when Emma Härdelin pipes tunefully up, in her native Swedish, it almost takes you by surprise. Reading the notes, they are actually singing separate songs, if, clearly, closely related. (Her’s is actually entitled En Vacker Vän, and they blend beautifully.)

Tyyne Laine is a lovely solo piano piece, with sounds of a babbling mountain stream in the background. Cooper says he wrote it first for kantele, realising then how well it transcribed to the keyboard. A short track, just under two minutes, it becomes the perfect interlude ahead the cello led The Wind. With complimentary piano, it is a late night musing turned into song, and carries that mood well. I note his forthcoming tour includes personnel for additional piano and, for that matter, nyckelharpa, which should allow a song such as this to get a more faithful presentation.

I am uncertain how many songs are birthed whilst swimming in the Baltic Sea; When We Reach The Sun is one, a sung eulogy to an old friend, taken too soon. A profoundly personal song, it is both moving and majestic, the harmonium fittingly spiritual. Adios, a song by the great Jimmy Webb, extends that feel, if a song more for a near miss, and makes for a satisfactory rounding up of the various themes and textures of this album, ending on a note of humanity and love.

A few final thoughts, if less about music, but still helping prop up the overall feelgood/heargood reception that comes album: Al Scott did the final mixes, he being the studio master for much of the Levellers output, as well as for Oysterband, actually then becoming Cooper’s bass replacement therein. The actual primary recordings came largely from Cooper’s home studio, the wonderfully named Love Shack, in Malmköping. And, lastly, the striking cover artwork comes from Marry Waterson, as adept in art as song.

Here’s the “festival mix”, as on the album, of Falling Like Thunder:

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