A private pressing of pastoral summer folk
Label: Wild Bird
Year of Release: 1984(?)
It's interesting how your association and relationship with music changes as you age. In my teens and for most of my twenties, music often had to surprise me, and if its tone was optimistic or life-affirming, I usually wanted energy and urgency to accompany that mood. The older I've got, however, the more I've begun to see the appeal of artists and genres I would have openly mocked as a youngster. Everything, it seems, has its moment of personal relevance.
So then, "Purbeck Hills" is something of an anthem for Poole folk singer Nicky Hann, and spends just over three delicate, considered, gentle minutes extolling the virtues of a rural idyll. While I would have openly dismissed this kind of thing as self-indulgent, simplistic poppycock as a young man, these days, as a tired middle-aged individual in suburban East London, I feel I can understand what she means and acknowledge something that may be missing from my life. Her voice trills and soars over the delicate acoustic backing, and manages to sound both joyous and earnest in a manner you usually only experience with religious music - but in this case, she's referring to her particular idea of heaven. The song is still commercially available on Amazon (and presumably elsewhere) but there's a lovely live film of it on YouTube too.
The B-side "Oh Summer Time" has since fallen off the radar but is stylistically speaking more of the same, with less of a specific countryside reference and more of a yearning feel. You can listen in full at the bottom of this entry.
2 comments:
I'm exactly the same as you. There's a band I followed closely back in the day - and still do. Was listening to an early live gig of theirs recently and they were slightly punky, the songs were performed faster. A couple of years later their sound smoothed out, the tempo slowed but I still like to listen to the more urgent playing.
Same as you with the attitude towards what we perceived as dinosaur music. I am the dinosaur now and I like the stuff I would have sneered at back then. Folk music being one of those. I think it's thanks to Mackenzie Crook getting Johnny Flynn to sing the title, as well as The Unthanks.
Now when someone mentions this type of music (mostly you) I stop and take a listen, because it needs your time to pause and listen.
Sorry to witter on.
No, it's a good point. Quite a lot of the albums I buy these days are folk or 70s singer-songwriter orientated, the kind of material I'd have cocked a snook at when it seeped out of my parent's radio in the 90s. But let's face it, we get emotionally attached to music depending on how much it speaks to us at the time we first hear it - and I think as we get older, we all realise that life is a lot more complicated than the simple battle-lines a lot of rock music draws up.
Of course, I think there was always a clear folk influence on a lot of music I liked way back then anyway. Neither Belle and Sebastian or Pulp were a million miles away from some of the stylistic tropes.
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