August List - Ramshackle Tabernacle

by John Clarkson

published: 27 / 5 / 2017

Label: Ubiquity Project Records
Format: CD

Unconventional but thrilling Americana on second album from Oxfordshire-based husband-and-wife duo the August List

Review

Oxfordshire-based husband-and-wife Americana duo the August List won much critical acclaim for their 2014 debut album ‘O Hinterland’, when it was released, like this album, on Reading-based label Ubiquity Project Records. ‘Ramshackle Tabernacle’, their second LP, has many of the same ingredients that made that first album so successful – Kerraleigh Child’s eerily beautiful vocals, husband Martin’s gnarled voice and a skewed, unique take on the world in its lyricism. Yet ‘Ramshackle Tabernacle’ is also a step forward. While ‘O Hinterland’ was recorded largely as a two-piece, ‘Ramshackle Tabernacle’ finds Kerraleigh (vocals, omnichord, harmonium and percussion) and Martin (vocals, guitar, stylophone II and percussion) working with an array of other musicians including Tommy Longfellow (drums), Billy Quarterman (bass), Ben Heaney (violin), album engineer and producer and ex-Viarosa front man Richard Neuberg (musical saw) and a tabernacle choir. For much of their lyrical inspiration the Childs have chosen to focus on characters, both fictional and real, who have withdrawn from the horrors of the world at large. Opening track ‘Old Rip’ begins as a scuffed jug blues before breaking out into a dervish, sinister waltz, and is a modern updating of the Rip Van Winkle story, originally written by the nineteenth century author Washington Irving. While Irving’s Winkle woke up after a sleep of over twenty years to find the world changed but eventually carried on as sort of normal, the August List’s Rip takes a far different approach. “When Old Rip when he woke up he turned on his TV set,” sings Martin Child as Kerraleigh harmonises besides him before continuing, “And what he saw made him shiver/He went right back to bed/Never made it outside.” The acoustic ‘Connie Converse’, another number which starts slowly but with the help of a reverberating, shimmering Omnichord again builds up, tells the real-life story of ‘lost’ 50’s singer-songwriter Connie who disillusioned twice by both the failure of her musical career and latterly changes in her job, packed up her possessions and vanished in 1974 never to be seen again (“1961 , 1974 she got burnt out/When she disappeared she drove her car out into the ether/How sad, how lovely the road to your recovery”). On the jangling second track ‘Palace in the Rocks’, which features a breezing harmonium, Kerraleigh who has the main vocals sings in the chorus before Martin takes over , “I always would speak the truth if I knew what it was/If I could see through the dirt and chase down my fears." Closing country number ‘The Ballad of James Lucas and Betty Dupree’, in which the Childs share joint vocals, meanwhile finds them comparing themselves to James ’Mad’ Lucas, a nineteenth century wealthy eccentric who paid two watchmen to keep people away from him. Unusual and abstract, 'Ramshackle Tabernacle' is a one-off. It reveals a deep mistrust of the world at large in is characters' refusal to conform or to take part in it. It, however, combines this with taut, appropriately off-kilter instrumentation, dark wit and in Martin and Kerraleigh Childs it has an unconventional but superb front man and woman. 'Ramshackle Tabernacle' is an unorthodox but highly rewarding experience.

Track Listing:-

1 Old Rip
2 Palace in the Rocks
3 Where Has All the Fire Gone?
4 I Am the Teeth
5 Connie Converse
6 Half Light
7 Petrified Forest
8 Wilderness
9 The Ballad of James Lucas & Betty Dupree