Southend’s folk/Americana troubadour, MG Boulter returns – and this time he’s looking a little deeper below the mundanities of suburban life.

Release Date:  7^th June 2024

Label: Hudson Records

Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from MG Boulter, the Southend singer-songwriter who specializes in insightful reflections of suburban life.  Back in April 2021, we were thoroughly enchanted by his album, Clifftown, his collection of reflective observations about life in and around Southend.  He continued with that theme with his 2022 EP, A Shadow Falls Over New Brighton but, since then, things have been quiet on the MG Boulter front. 

But now, at last, he’s back, picking up where he left off and continuing his observations of the mundanities of suburban life but, this time around, he’s delving a little deeper, exploring the rumours and mysteries of modern-day living, the  urban myths and the magical thinking in which we all indulge to form our hopes and expectations.  The songs of Days of Shaking describe UFO sightings, visitations of the deceased to our dreams and, most prominently, the means by which we all give ourselves hope. 

MG Boulter is a familiar name to many.  He first entered our collective consciousness as the frontman of Southend pub-rockers The Lucky Strikes, before going on to play lap steel in Simon Felice’s touring band.  He also featured in The Duke and the King, Emily Portman’s Coracle Band, Blue Rose Code and Jon Boden’s Remnant Kings.  Within these pages, we’ve previously commented on the audible influences of Neil Young, James Taylor and Stephen Stills upon his songwriting and performance and, whilst these influences continue to pervade the songs on Days of Shaking, I’d also suggest that he’s been taking a few pointers recently from Robin Pecknold, particularly when it comes to the more abstract extremes of his songwriting.

The album’s sound is, as expected, top-notch.  Producer Andy Bell has managed to achieve an impressive blend of the spare and the rich.  MG’s voice and acoustic guitar take centre-stage on just about every song, but Andy’s subtle use of accompanying instruments gives the songs a depth that often borders upon the luxurious.  MG himself adds pedal and lap steel guitar and percussion to the mix whilst guests Harriet Bradshaw (vocals, cello and percussion), Lucy Farrell (vocals, saw and percussion), Neil McSweeney (guitars, bass and vocals), Tom Lenthall (piano), Helen Bell (violin and viola) and Jenny Sturgeon (vocals and keyboards) complete the picture.

It’s the title track (also the album’s lead single) that gets Days Of Shaking underway and, straight away, the mix of the cosmic and the mundane that is such a dominant feature of the album is evident.  The scene is San Diego, California, rather than plain old Southend, as a resident spots what he believes to be a UFO hovering above his home and the part-interstellar, part-parochial lyrics – “Bow your head, boy, for the comet is coming, and the gardens of Rancho Santa Fe shimmer and shook in that sweet summer rain.  The floodlights of the golf club ascend in a heavenly array,” are accompanied by a blend of strummed guitar, sweet violins and spacey keyboard that also reflect the clash of the terrestrial with extra-terrestrial.

Lines like: “Sylvia, goddess of the grove, through orchards devils creep.  In this light, I can see them coming,” fill Quiet – the second of the album’s three singles – with vividly eerie pastoral imagery.  The tune is soft and gentle, but it moves along briskly and Neil’s electric guitar fills provide a razor-sharp edge.  And MG expresses contentment with who he is in the reflective Silver Birches – but, watch out for the sting in the tail as he declares, at the conclusion of the song, that: “Like Medusa’s eyes, I can boast that I’ll turn you into stone.”

Talk To Me Of Water, the most recent of the album’s three singles is, perhaps, my favourite track on the album.  The mix of picked acoustic guitar, violins, cello and pedal steel provide the perfect accompaniment to MG’s dreams of a Canadian winter tableau and his vocal delivery is one of his best ever.  And the spacey James Mason is dreamier still!  The eponymous actor visits MG in a dream to reassure him that “We are not destined for dust,” as keyboards and the most intimate backing vocals add mystery and mystique.

Even when the delivery is pared back to just MG and his acoustic guitar, the richness of the sound is evident – perhaps it’s the vocal harmonies that do the trick on The Masterless Man, another of the album’s outstanding tracks.  MG sings of the man who is free from authority, convention and commerce who “rolls back the tide with his eyes of obsidian” – it’s a wonderful image.  And, when MG decides to present something that almost resembles a conventional folk song, he sounds soooo much like James Taylor.  That’s the case on The Hotel At Midnight, one of MG’s several reflections on isolation and independence, states achieved here as he stalks the empty corridors and spaces of a hotel, whilst all the other residents sleep.

The potency of MG’s self-reflection is particularly prominent in Fox Running, as MG uses lines like “You are cheap hotels, you are miles and miles and miles, you are business cards on cork boards” and “You play the song the devil sings, for a tongue finds it hard to say.  You spit venom and you drink the mountains, and you want to see salad days” to evaluate his life.  It’s another simple guitar/voice song that, once again, is given extra depth and richness, courtesy of more divine harmony vocals.

“Limbs like verbs, teeth like silver,” quotes the refrain in The Jaws of Nothing and fingerpicked guitar, a distant organ and beautiful vocals all add up to another wonderful song.  And there’s something of a bluesy feel to City Map, a song in which MG loses himself in a scene involving a girl, some photographs and the promise of unfathomable dreams.

And, so, the musings reach their conclusion.  The lyrics to Blonde Pine, the album’s closing track, are, alternately, chilling (“…skulls with perfect teeth that chatter to no-one”) and filled with hope (“You can be the song and sing it, you can be the bullet from the gun.”)  The mood is laid-back country, Helen’s violin is exquisite and the lyrical message is clear: We write our own destiny.

Listen to Talk To Me Of Water – the most recent of the album’s three singles – here:

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