JENNIFER BELL & WILSON WALKER - And So To Bedlam
Private Label JBWW01
Jennifer Bell is a songwriter with a distinct penchant for traditional English folk songs and early music, influences much evident on this collection of self-penned material, on which she’s ably partnered by fiddle player Wilson Walker (a musician active on the Nottingham morris/ceilidh scene).
Jennifer’s backstory includes a spell with the band Sherwood Rise in the 80s, but she’s a captivating musical presence in her own right. An attractive singer, with a seductive timbre and easily controlled vibrato, her assured, poised presence and clear diction take their cue both from the poetic precision of her lyrics and the rhythmic impetus of early music. In Jennifer’s hands, the latter aspect imparts a refreshing sense of confident urgency (an element so often absent from the fey, slightly precious aura of much folk-early-music crossover). It helps too that her own accompaniment, on lute or 12-string guitar, is accomplished yet unfussy with no desire to dominate, while Wil’s contributions, whether bowed or pizzicato, are both effective and sensitively managed. There’s also a measure of sympathetically driven percussion embellishment from Neil Rabjohn on around half of the tracks.
Jennifer’s imagination is given fullest rein on the beautiful Winter’s My Lover and Ashes In The Rain, while the lovingly phrased High Degree – set to Thomas Tallis’ Third Mode Melody (the theme used in Vaughan Williams’ wonderful Fantasia) – brilliantly encapsulates the mood of seasonal rumination and evokes its central mystery. Interestingly, though, the peculiarly nostalgic “what-if” charm of Oh Boy (ostensibly based very loosely on personal experience!) has (for the time being) ended up as the disc’s most lasting earworm.
The warm ambience of Jennifer’s delivery, allied to the gentle intelligence of her songwriting style, is extremely beguiling, making this a disc to savour repeatedly.
www.jenniferbellsongwriter.com
David Kidman
 |
Many CDs we review are available from The Listening Post. Check to see if this CD is available. The Listening Post is the CD mailorder service of The Living Tradition magazine. This album was reviewed in Issue 126 of The Living Tradition magazine. |