A lavish 3rd helping of songs in the key of bird, brimming with brightness and beauty, as the dream team, Polwart, Fowlis, Drever etc, reprise the impossible.

EXTRAPOLATION & INSPIRATION

Are you familiar yet with Spell Songs? You should be, if you have any faith or belief in the redemptive power of music as it entwines with nature. This is the third outing of what started merely as an idea, curated by Folk By The Oak, bringing together and bridging the writing of Robert Mcfarlane and the painting of Jackie Morris. With their books together already such a cerebro-visual feast, the idea was to allow a collection of singers and performers to bring the books into an auditory life, the music extrapolated and inspired by the words and the artwork.

ALL STAR INCLUSIVENESS

It was back in 2019 this first collaboration came into being, with The Lost Words Spell Songs, followed, two years later with Spell Songs II, Let The Light In. Mcfarlane and Morris published a further book, The Book Of Birds, in May of this year, and this album follows the same template, re-uniting the same seven musical artists. And, as well as the Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis and Kris Drever, mentioned above, it includes also acclaimed Malian singer and kora maestro, Seckou Keita, harpist and singer Rachel Newton, cellist and singer, Beth Porter and Jim Molyneux, who is more of a polymath, adept across many instruments, to include the studio as one of those.

The book follows the seven wonders of birds: Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight and Migration, and celebrates forty-nine bird species on the RSPB red or amber lists of conservation concern. It represents a widening of the creative response to the great thinning of the skies.

GLACIATING & SIRENESQUE

It is with the sound of a starling murmuration that the disc opens, for the title track. Surely, say you, the starling cannot be under threat, the reality being it one of the fastest birds in decline, and the idea that the wonderful sky patterns produced might be something to ultimately disappear is a shock. More of a sound collage, keyboards and strings combine to picture up a skycape, with whispered words flitting in and out of echoed earshot. The scene is thus set, as it moves into a slow melody, underpinned by cello and acoustic bass.

Make Your Heart A Cradle arrives in on a billow of fiddle, as Polwart glaciates in unmistakably: “Pray to the feathered ether” which looks almost as good on paper as she allows it to sound. Her voice captures the cadence of flight. Strings cascade around chiming keyboard textures, sirenesque harmonies slotting behind the singer. The contrast, then, with the Subsaharan scatter of Njan follows, translating as nest. The largely Scottish chorale manage to sound inescapably African, under Keita’s supervision and play, coming as no small tribute to the ensemble, switching and swapping styles so seamlessly. It is followed by the similarly brief Nest Builder, a gentle guitar led instrumental, buffeted by bass and tinkling harp, cello cutting a broad swathe down the middle.

A WAVE OF SHIVERS

It is Newton who takes up the vocal lead for On A Life Begun, a there but not there melody, as the tone-poem of Mcfarlane’s lyric is enunciated clearly, with Newton reworking the theme as to weave in her own experiences into the piece. Keeping you waiting until track six is a bold move, such the unimpeachable presence of Fowlis, and, by keeping you wait then for an over a minute of atmospherically eerie intro, this adds only to the grace her vocal brings. Here she is adapting an and interpreting an old Gaelic song, and singing in that tongue. An Calman, or The Dove, it sends a glorious wave of shivers up the spine. Molyneux’s tip-tappy percussion is perfect, as is Drever’s electric guitar.

Polwart again, for Bells Falls Still, her simply beautiful delivery gilded by Drever’s lilting harmony. “It’s not enough to love the song, if you forget the singers,” a message that applies equally to birdsong as to, as is sensitively alluded to, the plight of those in Gaza. It is possibly one of her best ever songs, a co-write with Drever, and she has a few.

If that might seem a tough one to follow, the collective pull out another jewel, an Afro-Celt hybrid, if you will, Talàdh Nan Eun, if firing more on acoustic energies. Fowlis combines a Gaelic lullaby into a Mandinka proverb from Keita. The rolling harp and kora motif pair perfectly with the Hebridean melody, increasingly beefed by Molyneux’s muscular percussion, choral vocals and Porter’s cello. Magnificent. The blink and it’s gone instrumental, Feathers, then cleanses all palates with a chiming twinkle of piano, harp and kora. It is in this middle triad that the record really finds feet.

A DREAM(Y) BALLAD

From Feathers to Fallen Feathers, this is a a guitar and voice dream ballad, with shimmering keys and hazy bvs. Predominantly Fowlis and Polwart, these two voices blend so well. Unexpected drums bounce in the half way mark, the enticing mismatch between velocity and tangent drawing the listener inexorably in. Personally, I was not so keen the overt folk-pop of Ride The World’s Wind; Molyneux’s vocals sound auto-tuned and the drums overly mechanistic, as if to bring on board younger listeners. It’s a decent enough tune, but strays away from the overall, however much the harp tries to pull it back.

Flight is a mere wing away, mind, another kora-folk fusion that sits easier on the ear, if maybe a little too easily, at least until the stunning ensemble vocals soar in. Migration, which follows, has a bit more of a bite to it, a song built around rotating plucked string patterns and keyboard figures. The voices sound in migration, bearing and keening off sideways, a solid rhythm keeping a close eye om any too wayward flight patter. I really like this one, but perhaps the strongest song of all comes from Drever, whose powder, thus far, has been largely kept dry, some backing vocals and guitar parts aside.

If you can imagine an outtake from Graceland, were Paul Simon to come from Kirkwall, this would possibly be what you would come up with. The song, Senegal, is nominally around Keita’s homeland, but is more about an individual constantly on the move, possibly also Keita. A triumph, which only adds to Drever’s ever enhancing reputation.

DESERVING & DEMANDING

Porter closes the album, near alone with a ukulele. This is We Only Save The Ones We Love, the title sobering enough in itself, certainly when the eye of the beholder is brought into the equation, or mindset, causing thought around those we might not, on grounds of appearance or prejudice. It is an uncomplicatedly straightforward and uncompromising message. Flickers of electric guitar and ghostly coos slowly build, with harp and kora gradually filling in the spaces. It makes for just the thoughtful end piece the project deserves and demands.

Give this a few gos. It isn’t all instant, and, like birdsong itself, needs sometimes that familiarity to build content. Because, when it has gone, and if birds go, we’ll miss it and them.

Here’s Bells Fall Still:

Spell Songs: Website

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