As someone once said of Holly Clarke, man, she can sing, and this assured solo debut nails that case proven!

FREEDOM & PRIDE

And if you have ever caught Holly Clarke in feminist electro-folk band, RE:VULVA, that title would surely fit. However she has also a gentler side, more akin to her earlier handiwork, with Holly & the Reivers. Here, her strong and pure voice allies with her energetic strumming, to run through an invigorating set of mainly traditional songs, aided and abetted by some of the best musicians in her address book. This is wildness as a freedom of spirit rather than in tooth and claw, feral as in a return to simpler surrounds and fierce maybe more in the pride she exudes, the pride of being.

AN EXPLOSION OF FRESH AIR

The first song, The Spectral Stag, leaps out from the grooves like an explosion of fresh air, buoyed by John Pope’s double bass, with unison fiddle and box, Anna Hughes and Amy Thatcher respectively, liberally sprinkled, as additional melody, about her. It’s a cracking start! I reckon it takes some confidence to tackle John Barleycorn, and she has both that, and the ability, to not only deliver it, fairly straight, yet with delightful new nuances slotting in seamlessly. Again, Pope can take no small credit, but the slow atmospheric build also contains multitudes of muted electric guitars. The background dronescape of synth, from Jacob Stoney, is simmeringly effective. Hughes and Thatcher add some additional vocals to their instrumental play, and it is two killers, no filler.

A song of Danish origin, The Maiden Hind is more of a showcase for her vocal, with other accompaniment dialled back. The producer, Pete Ord, who is the provider of many the additional guitars and the muted percussion, has whipped up great expanses of space that Clarke can fill, effortlessly, with her voice, her own guitar and an electronic shimmer all else that is required. Only as it ends does the depth of eerie echo reveal, hauntingly so.

ELDRITCH ETHEREALITY

Given no less than Martin Carthy is on record as a fan: “Man, she can sing“, he says, so it is only reasonable she returns the favour, offering up a song known best from his own repertoire. Her version of Bonnie Woodhall adds more of the eldritch ethereality left hanging from the track before. Her voice pours out like a crystalline cup, sitting on the surface of the soundstage like smoke. Bowed bass provides the sense of trepidation, quietly enveloping the atmosphere. More of Stoney’s electronic backdrop expands the palate further, and the overall mix of organic and artifice is perfect.

ACCEPTANCE

The title song is Clarke’s own, a song in celebration of herself, or, at least, of the acceptance of her individuality. The arrangement is a dense mix of strings that take on brass like tones. With a slight hint of Snows That Melt The Soonest, this is distant enough to be only a good thing. Strawberry Town is then rendered near unaccompanied, other than by reverberating echo. It fits the mood of the record to have this treatment, but I can’t wait to hear it, live and naked of amplification.

Burd Margaret gets a psychfolk wash that marries the trad with 60’s wyrd, picked guitar and mandola setting up a hypnotic pattern, over which the FX flutter faithfully. With most these songs struck somewhere between the four and five minute mark, she stretches the mystical tale of Sir Aage And Lady Elselil out to over seven. It too is cited as Danish in origin, but it’s adapted to strengthen the sense of Scandi, perhaps a nod to her Viking roots. Rich swoops of viola, Hughes again, maintain the mythic mood, Thatcher then joining in, as the tale unfolds. The bass is still just glorious.

PURITY & PRECISION

Viking, you say? OK, I’m assuming such, but her Cumbrian upbringing and Northumbrian domicile surely begats that. Which is itself underlined by The North, a group composition, which is more a collage of sound and textures. It starts with a rolling cart, with Northumbrian pipes then setting up a wail, ahead it breaking into the final song, Home. The pipes are provided, of course they are, by Kathryn Tickell. When Clarke begins to sing the words, it dips back to just guitar and voice, a love song to her geography: “This is my home where I’m from“. With Tickell adding some further bellows-driven ornamentation, the chorus becomes splendidly choral. It is a truly lovely song to end with, and with no real end or beginning between each of the final three tracks, together they provide an aural potpourri of purity and precision.

Clarke can and should be well pleased with this recording, which must surely push her up the rankings of those to watch and hear. Yes, she’s fun with RE:VULVA, but this is a much more fulfilling repast.

Here’s the opener, The Spectral Stag, and rather charming is the video too!

Holly Clarke: Website

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