Rabble Rouser Music (label)
09 February 2015 (released)
25 January 2015
The signs were there a few years back when The Unthanks started to perform King Crimson’s Starless. That they were looking to expand their horizons and experiment, and not content to sit back and rest on their folk laurels. The new album Mount the Air sees the band take steps away from their roots but subtly.
This shift was posted on the first single, an edited version of the 10 minute title track. Although based on a traditional folk song, Tom Arthurs trumpet has echoes of Mile Davies circa Sketches of Spain, which on the longer version underpins the whole track, as it shifts tempos and moods, as the traditional instruments are gently brought in and out of the song. Rachel and Becky Unthanks’s distinctive voices are a natural foil for this ambitious opener.
Multi-instrumentalist Adrian McNally has a hand in almost all the songs whether as arranger or writer. And it’s the arranging one of the compelling elements on this album. Take Last Lullaby with its interchanging piano and strings, or the desolate Madam’s sparse keyboards, orchestration and percussion.
Neatly introducing the second half of the album is another 10 minuter, Foundling. Part sweeping and lush, part humble and spare the song is an epic. And while it doesn’t quite take the listener on the journey that Mount...does it touches a rawer, more emotional nerve.
Listing to the album familiar themes start to emerge there’s the aforementioned tracks and then there’s the sinister Flutter with percussion that’s straight out a 70’s film soundtrack. They dabble with the sound of the Appalachians on the delightful The Poor Stranger. Ironical or not, they even perform a song called Magpie which is a little on the dark side.
Saying that, this is not an exercise in musical pilfering and adaptation. Even with all the influences, side-steps and experimentation, this still sounds very much like an Unthanks album, in that the tone is pretty gloomy all the way through. That is until The Poor Stranger and the instrumental closer Waiting when there are hints of light.
This is a complex though never impenetrable album. It’s long and some may have difficulties with the pace which is measured to say the least, but this is music is to be savoured and patience generally rewards.
