Karl Culley - Stripling

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 21 / 5 / 2015

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It didn’t look too promising; yet another acoustic singer-songwriter delivering a dozen of his own songs without any embellishments, just voice and guitar, and even though it’s Yorkshireman Karl Culley’s fourth album, so he must be doing something right, the comparisons to Bert Jansch and John Martyn just set expectations impossibly high. Recorded in Krakow, Poland, which Culley currently calls home, ‘Stripling’ actually does deserve those comparisons. Possessed with an immediately likeable singing voice, a hybrid of say Tim Buckley and early John Martyn (the whole feel of ‘Stripling’ recalls Martyn’s debut album, ‘The Tumbler’) Culley’s percussive guitar playing, the only other sound on the album, is the perfect accompaniment to those vocals. The opening ‘Semi-Precious’ is something of a shock on first listen; the haunting qualities in Culley’s vocals immediately capture the listener, and his fingerpicking style of guitar playing is mesmerisng on this track. Lyrically the song is quite moving, the passing down from a father to son of precious things that can be interpreted in different ways to include more than physical things. ‘Come Over to Me’, the song that follows, displays a little of Culley’s blues leanings adding more texture and atmosphere to that of the opening track. There are unmistakable traces of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ buried deep in there somewhere; it makes for fascinating listening. ‘Spinneret’ brings to mind, not vocally but certainly in Culley’s guitar playing, some of the work from another pink-era Island artist, Nick Drake. While many of the contemporary artists who are making music that makes more than a few passing nods to the singer-songwriters who were lumped in with the folk set of the sixties/early seventies are pushing boundaries and trying to take the music to new levels it seems that Culley is quite content to let his music flow naturally. If it sounds at times that it could have been made at any time within the last six decades, then what does it matter? The fact that Culley can be favourably compared to the likes of Martyn and Jansch only emphasises his talent. ‘If We Were Free’, which dips into almost spoken-word sections at times, shows that, although the lyrics again can be as oblique or as simple as the listener wants them to be, Culley is also adept at creating lively melodies as well as thoughtful, reflective pieces. The way the song abruptly stops after “ three man are lowered into the ground/They will never make another sound” before starting again after a couple of seconds silence is undeniably effective. That Culley follows that track with ‘Namesake’, one of his most tender songs which floats dreamily along on the prettiest of melodies only adds to the power of the preceding song, while also proving that he has plenty of his own unique vision to keep things interesting. ‘Stripling’ is an album that, while on first listening reveals a singer/songwriter of no little talent, does take a few plays to reveal all of its intricacies, for despite being just voice and acoustic guitar there’s much to be discovered not only in Culley’s often fascinating lyrics but in his remarkable guitar style. It’s quite a journey to take, in fact, and one that you’ll want to take time and again.

Track Listing:-

1 Semi Precious
2 Come Over to Me
3 School of the Heart
4 Spinneret
5 The River to the Cave
6 If We Were Free
7 Namesake
8 Mote
9 Infinity Pool
10 Whey-faced Phantoms
11 A.J.
12 Memory's Like a Hunting Hawk

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/karlculleymusic
https://twitter.com/karlculley

Label Links:-

http://www.soundofjura.com/
https://www.facebook.com/soundofjura/timeline/
https://vimeo.com/soundofjura

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