Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo - Despite the Snow

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 27 / 9 / 2008

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Review

Okay, so I’m a sucker for albums that evoke the seasons. As much as summer is the season that most artists use for inspiration there are those more melancholy times which the colder seasons are more suited to. For many years now Charlotte Greig’s ‘Winter Woods’ has been the winter album. The starkness and unsettling beauty conveyed by the songs on that album made it the perfect soundtrack to the cold, dark winter days. Naming an album ‘Despite The Snow’ gave me some hope that here might be a companion piece for that album by Charlotte Greig. While not quite such a dark set of songs as that album, ‘Despite The Snow’ is going to be an excellent soundtrack to winter 2008/9. Emily Barker, ably assisted here by the Red Clay Halo (Anna Jenkins, Jo Silverston and Gill Sandell who play violin, cello and accordion/flute respectively) sings, plays guitar and harmonica and wrote the bulk of the songs on ‘Despite The Snow’. Already well known back in her native Australia where she won awards for Country Song Of The Year and Regional Song Of The Year at the Annual West Australian Music Songwriting Awards, this is her second album and released on her own Everyone Sang label. Recorded live in a 16th century barn in Norfolk, England over the Easter weekend 2008 when it apparently snowed the intimacy created by recording in that barn, in the cold, over just four days makes this a stunning collection of songs and an album that stands alone in the atmosphere it creates. Although there is a bleakness running through the album it is never overly depressing and in spite of weeping violin and cello to the fore the songs tend to lift the gloom of a winter’s day rather than add to it. The playing by the all-girl band is immaculate. It just can’t be faulted and the production by Emily is sympathetic to the surroundings and conditions of the recording. It is, quite simply, a superb album. But the biggest thrill for those of us who missed out on Emily’s debut, ‘Photos, Fires, Fables’, is the discovery of yet another female singer / songwriter who not only knows how to write melodies, and by that I mean actual tunes, where if you take the words away then the song still says something, who not only couples those melodies with touching words but has a voice that is special too. Okay, for a singer who replaced Stephanie Arlene (The Arlenes) on a U.K. tour she’d have to be exceptional, but Emily Barker is the possessor of a beautiful voice. And it’s that voice that makes this album, makes these songs brighten up a dark, dismal day while still sounding melancholic. Despite being compared to, it seems, everyone from Emmylou Harris to Martha Wainwright, I feel the closest I can get to is Natalie Merchant. There’s that haunted folksy sound to Emily’s vocals which recalls Merchant’s expressive voice. But what a voice Emily has. Surely with this album and a performance at The Cambridge Folk Festival she will find a wider audience who will appreciate just what a fine singer she is. Not a Friday night getting ready for the party type album then, but a collection of songs with substance, feeling and soul running through them. The soundtrack to my long winter nights for sure.

Track Listing:-

1 Nostalgia
2 All Love Knows
3 Disappear
4 If It's All Night Long
5 Bloated, Blistered, Aching Heart
6 Bright Phoebus
7 Storm in a Teacup
8 The Greenway
9 Sideline
10 Breath
11 Serendipity
12 Oh Journey
13 Despite the Snow
14 Nostalgia (Wallander Version)
15 Disappear (Alternative Version)