Morton Valence - Morton Valence

  by John Clarkson

published: 7 / 1 / 2023

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When a band releases an album under its own name late into its career, it often symbolises a lack of fresh ideas, but not so with Morton Valence and their eponymous eighth album. Their last 2018 album ‘Bob and Veronica Rides Again’ was recorded and self-produced acoustically as a duo. and released as all their albums had been to date on their own label, Bastard Recordings. ‘Morton Valence’, however, finds the South London-formed ‘urban country’ group signed to a new label, the resurrected and seminal 70’s label Cow Pie Records, working with its founder and veteran pedal steel legend BJ Cole who has produced it, and the central two-piece of Robert ‘Hacker’ Jessett (vocals, guitar and harmonica) and Anne Gilpin (vocals) playing in an expanded line-up, which includes, as well as Cole, a drummer, bassist, keyboardist, fiddler and flamenco guitarist. Cole’s unfussy production has a cleanliness, which suits Jessett and Gilpin’s sour/sweet vocals, and gives each of the instruments involved the chance to shine. “I guess that things don’t always turn out the way we thought it would,” sings Jessett as a last line on the album’s forlorn, melancholic third track ‘Jim’, capturing in a sentence one of the album’s main themes of personal disappointment. ‘Morton Valence’ is opened with the wistful recent single ‘Summertime in London’, which, set against the backdrop of a slowly drawling harmonica, finds Jessett, who is based in Spain nowadays for work reasons, pining nostalgically for his absent home city (“Why can’t it always be summertime in London town?”). ‘Like a Face That’s Been Starved of a Kiss’ thrusts Gilpin’s sublime vocals and Cole’s shimmering pedal steel to the fore, and reflects on broken dreams. “I joined the Hare Krishnas for a while,” Gilpin quips. “I couldn’t raise the necessary smile.” “Nothing is going to stop me and my old guitar,” sings Hacker’s hapless troubadour on ‘Me and My Old Guitar’, upon which Amir John Haddad’s rippling flamenco guitar is a highlight, but he is swiftly murdered by soldiers in the Spanish Civil War and his body paraded through town as a trophy of war. It is not all, however, so dark. ‘It’s a Brand New Morning’ is a surging, gloriously upbeat tribute to all the possibilities of what a new day can bring, and the waltzing ‘Bob and Veronica’s Big Move’ finds Jessett and Gilpin’s ageing and regular anti-heroes living peacefully by the seaside ("We have had our ups and downs, my Veronica and me/I wasn’t always faithful and neither was she/We have ironed out our differences/Now we are hunky-dory”). ‘Morton Valence’ is closed on a note of optimistic defiance with the brooding, beautifully elegiac ‘Together Through the Rain’, which puts Cole’s pedal steel again in the centre, and finds Jessett and Gilpin as a duetting pair of lovers who decide to stay together against the odds (“We can share my umbrella and walk together through the rain”). A fantastic album from Morton Valence who continue to do something different and break new ground with each new recording.

Track Listing:-

1 Summertime in London
2 I've Been Watching You/You've Been Watching Me
3 Jim
4 Like a Face That's Been Starved of a Kiss
5 It's a Brand New Morning
6 Me & My Old Guitar
7 A Town Called Home
8 Bob & Veronica's Big Move
9 It Isn't Easy Being an Angel
10 If I Make It Back to Mary's House
11 Together Through the Rain

Band Links:-

http://www.mortonvalence.com
https://www.facebook.com/mortonvalence
https://twitter.com/mortonvalence

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