Saint Joan - One At Twilight

  by John Clarkson

published: 23 / 2 / 2005

Label: Dakota
Format: CD

intro

Long-awaited and tantalisingly brief mini-debut album from literary Nottingham rockers Saint Joan, which floats 'on a dreamy plateau somewhere between folk and post rock'

It pays to be patient to be a Saint Joan fan. Records only come out rarely, and in the course of the last six years since they first formed in 1999 the Nottingham-based five-piece have released just two singles, 'The Ice House' and 'December' (Dakota, both 2002), and one other track on a compilation, 'Sunset : False' (Slow Noir, 2003). Membership problems have undoubtedly been a factor in this. The group only stabilised two years ago with the induction of guitarist Matt Williams into the line-up, which has an international cast of players and also features Brits Ellen McGee (vocals, guitar) and Matthew Harms (drums, percussion) ; Hungarian Krisztina Hidasi (violin) and Frenchman Christophe Dejous (bass). One, however, gets the impression that Saint Joan work hard at their art also and would not be keen to commit anything to recording unless it was special or out of the ordinary. Now at last there is a mini album, 'One at Twilight'. At just under half an hour in length, and only six tracks long, including a reworking of the 'Sunset : False' track 'Electric Light, Shine On', it is a tantalisingly brief affair, but one which reveals a major talent at work. Songs float on a dreamy plateau somewhere between folk and post rock, often beginning softly with just the soft, repetitive beat of a guitar, and then building up gradually to a hypnotic crescendo which merges Hidasi's drowsy violin and Harms' fluttering drum work with Dejous' sturdy bass and Williams' slow burning, brooding guitar. McGee's stream-of-consciousness, literary vocals meanwhile combine the sandpapery earthiness of Goya Dress' Astrid Williamson with the smouldering pinings of Jesse Sykes. Water is a domineering theme on 'One at Twilight'. The instruments are trilled up to a point a few octaves just below shrill on the eerie, ethereal 'Tigermoth', augmenting the song's majesty and power. It takes its inspiration from McGee's great aunt, one of the first female aviators, who disappeared in her plane and was presumed drowned. "I cannot see the stars from the bottom of the sea" croons McGee, spookily assuming the mantle of the dead woman. "But I could hear those birds when we walked along the shore/My heart will beat no more." McGee, an English graduate, cites Virginia Woolf as one of her prime influences, and water is once more a source of comfort, but also again potentially deadly on the album's closer, the seven minute 'For Star City.' This intense final track, which concludes in a maelstorm of guitars, violin and also piano from special guest Neil Wells, finds McGee trying to seduce her lover into walking into the river with her. "I only wanted water to put out the flame" she lulls at him. "I only wanted you to walk with me down to the river side/I can breathe there/So come on home, come on home/I feel like I belong here." Elsewhere the terse, claustrophobic 'Nightmare in E Minor' tells of a relationship in its dying flames. "You can still leave" rages McGee with sudden bitterness at her about-to-be ex-love. "You can go to her/Show me the sun in your sky/and leave me blind." It is not all, however, quite so melancholic. Meandering hymnal waltz 'Ways that We Shall Go Upon' finds McGee stumbling across a perfect almost chocolate box spectacle ("I came upon a scene that night/Beneath a twilight serenade/I looked upon a shining light/A dozen ukeleles playing/And so the evening settled down/We waited for the evening song"). Tinged with a subtle aura of mysteriousness and haunting enigma, 'One at Twilight' toys and engages actively with its listeners' emotions and thoughts. Lush and beautiful in sound, and poetic and angular in tone, it is a challenging, but ultimately highly rewarding experience. It may be a while, if their past record is anything to go by, before we hear anything else in the way of new music from Saint Joan, but in the meantime they have left us with an album that is sumptious in pleasures and rewards.

Track Listing:-