Big boned Americana from the Morayshire midwest, the Broken Records man Jamie Sutherland sets out on a second solo mission.
Release Date: 6th September 2024
Label: Frictionless Records
Format: Vinyl / Digital
You might know better the name in conjunction with the band, even his band, Broken Records, although his brother, Rory, may take exception to that! Here, however, it is Jamie’s opportunity to take full responsibility. And this is a more laid back, slightly, piece of work than their last, largely more acoustic and organic, if not exclusively so. Having said this, the accompaniment is provided largely by his bandmates, augmented by a string section under the baton of Edinburgh strings maven, Seonaid Aitken. With publicity describing it as “evoking classic Americana imagery, set against a backdrop of vintage folk music,” it’s probably what I’d call Glaswegiana, then!
The album bursts open with a thrash of acoustic guitars and harmonica, Sutherland immediately channeling his influences from the midwest and beyond, a higher and slightly more frantic Springsteen. The strings cast a widescreen backdrop and a piano plays chords with no small passion. An organ is somewhere in there too, a big, big sound. Like You Did Before loses no momentum, a mid tempo rattle, the reverb on the vocals dialled up still further. The tune is Creedence-y, the delivery a whisper away from manic. The bond between band and string section is both boldly unsubtle and inspired, each at once. I’m not hearing any vintage folk yet, mind.
Some Things Hurt A Little Bit More pitches his voice down an octave or so, a more laid back fingerpicked guitar construction rotating beneath it. As it progresses, he really gives his voice a good stretch, finding all corners of his range. It still feels more cowboy than folk club, if with no complaints from here. As Ian Turnbull’s piano tumbles in, followed by brother Rory’s organ, all is good: “Ghosts in the hallway, ghosts on the stair, ghosts in the bedroom, ghosts everywhere; familiar in a way, but they all look like you” gives a flash of the lyrical flow of direction. The whole project has just gone up a notch. Before you get any second to reflect, a howl of harmonica ushers in the same sort of pell mell rhythm, almost a continuation of the same song rather than a new one, if with jangly electric guitars sashaying in, alongside the battering his acoustic is now getting. “I sing to your ghost” suggests I’m not wrong. The strings swoop in as it closes, demonstrating every penny the worth of that conceit.
While I Sleep suggests he did, eventually, a further flurry of finger picking, with an atmospheric electronic horizon leeching in for a choral effect. Oddly, I find myself minded of Gordon Lightfoot for this one. In another setting, possibly a different arrangement, yes, this could be, and become, a folk club staple for innovative performers. The longest track on the album, the programming of the running order seems well thought out, with a deliberate progression. So much so that Always Be, which follows, is actually over the other side of the disc, should you be reading this on vinyl. and feels like a fresh start. With piano more to the fore, it feels a more windswept song, with lyrics that give a nod to his East Coast home, East Coast Scotland, that is. The cello is mixed high and central to the mix, as he croons “I’ve no use for a place in heaven, I’ve no use for your words of god“, asking his ashes be scattered here. The Morayshire coast is papable within the soundscape.
All You’ve Ever Known Of Love is, perhaps, lighter, in the way that love is lighter than death, if sometimes feeling otherwise so. Guitar, voice and spectral keys are the only presences here, down to that greasy sound of fingers, sliding on strings. (And, actually, just a little too intrusively…..) A real Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts mood imbues the arrangement of The World As It Used To Be, something I am always a sucker for. Rather than a tale of derring do, it is somewhat of a statement song, a treatise of how we are and how we got here, world wise. There’s a banjo in there, too, uncredited, but never a bad thing. Which then leaves just enough time to reprise some of the mood of side one, with the anthemic We Will Rise. An organ peals and a piano chimes, Sutherland singing and strumming his hopes, irrespective the arrived destination of the song before. “We will arise above the darkness!” I hope so, his chameleonic style now oozing layer upon layer of David Gray, with Aitken’s strings a majestic surround to close the show with some optimism tinged hope.
Try Some Things Hurt A Little More:
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