Little Sparrow - Wishing Tree

by John Clarkson

published: 8 / 9 / 2015

Label: Little Sparrow
Format: Download

Excellent new download only single from Manchester-based folk act, Little Sparrow

Review

The project of ethereal-voiced Cambridgeshire-born and now Manchester-based singer-songwriter Katie Ware, Little Sparrow’s debut album, ‘Wishing Tree’, of last year floated between the existing world and that of a magical alternative and better reality. Now just over twelve months on, to accompany the release of a new video, Ware has put out the title song as a download single. “Take a step back from the things that you see/You might get confused quite easily if you get too close,” she warns against the gorgeous backdrop of a dancing, see-sawing violin and a breezy folk tune. The video builds on this, unveiling a humorous and quirky side to Little Sparrow. Ware and her band mates waltz through a woodland wearing animal masks before finally discovering a huge cardboard cut-out of a wishing tree. A cartoon deer, birds, butterflies and other forest animals meanwhile flit in and out of the background. For all its surreality and sense of fun, one is left in no doubt that this, rather than being strange sugar tale optimism, has been hard-earned. It is Ware taking a brief respite from the real world with all its hurt and disappointment and wishing that this is the way things were rather than the way things actually are. ‘The Garden’, the second track on the single and a new song, builds on this idea further. Summery again in tone, it reveals Ware taking joy from her garden and in tending and building it. The ‘Wishing Tree’ single is about the importance of hope and of finding comfort from both the real and the imagined. Katie Ware and Little Sparrow make this both entrancing and also absolutely alluring.