a r t i s t : Cath and Phil Tyler
t i t l e : Dumb Supper
d a t e : 2008
l a b e l : No-Fi (NEU008)
g e n r e : Folk
r l s. d a t e : Jul/2008
t r a c k s : 13
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 55,5 MB
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Blood n guts folk from the Anglo-American duo.
The Wire says "The twining harmonies...recall the heyday of
English pastoral folk song". Plan B says "Dumb Supper is one
of those rare modern folk albums that will find a home both in
the longstanding 'traditional' music community and among those
attracted to the form's more experimental and lo-fi
possibilities".
Most of the tracks are re-discovered and adapted by the
Tylers, their searing harmonies and sparse, vital
instrumentation breathing new life into timeless tales of
love, loss and death.
http://www.no-fi.org.uk/label.php
One of the most haunting moments of Shirley Collins' 'America
Over The Water' talk at London's Purcell Rooms last year was
the singer and folk historian's memories of Sacred Harp choirs
in the white Protestant churches of the American South in the
Fifties. As she described the congregation's voices pulling
together the hymns of generations, a recording filled the
hall: robust, stretched and austere. The familiar Christian
songs, so anodyne to any of us brought up in church schools
and choirs, were thrown open to heavier ritual associations,
by the wide, weird intervals - closer to plainchant or power
chords - and the drifting, idiosyncratic phrasing of massed,
inexpert singers.
Sacred Harp, or shape note singing, implies both democracy (in
its notational method, devised in the 19th Century to be
accessible to non-music readers) and control (in its
austerity, and its use in the strictest Christian
communities), a combination that exerts a musical pull beyond
ontological concerns. When its style is woven into
traditional, non-religious music, as it is on Anglo-American
duo Cath and Phil Tyler's first album on Newcastlebased
experimental label No-Fi, you're reminded both of the folk
roots of most hymn tunes and of the devotional associations
our ears make with modal music, from Indian ragas to metal.
And you're reminded of much more: Dumb Supper is one of those
rare modern folk albums that will find a home both in the
longstanding 'traditional' music community and among those
attracted to the form's more experimental and lo-fi
possibilities. Cath Tyler's vocal style harks back to those
backwoods churches, but away from the choir, there's as much
in it of Thalia Zedek or Michael Gira: that sense of buffeted,
fateful reserve. Similarly, co-vocalist Phil Tyler's muscular
guitar and banjo playing shies away from displays of fancy
fingerwork, preferring a sparse, purposeful roll and groove
or, as on the likes of 'Death Of Queen Jane' and 'Stirrup',
sombre phrasing that follows the vocal line with pauses that
reverberate with rue and wonder.
When the duo pick up speed, on 'Devil's Song', 'Fisherman's
Girl' and 'Farewell My Friends', there's still not a note
wasted; instead, the onus is on rhythm, momentum and force.
The latter song owes some of its urgency to an underlying D-
drone more likely to be heard in, say, Six Organs Of
Admittance, and 'Morning' makes use of a distorted electric
riff - but Dumb Supper is not a folk-rock or psych-folk album.
It uses none of the devices practitioners of those genres
often crack out to convey oddity, timelessness and so on, and
thus conveys those things all the more.
It's a weird looking-glass effect many folk fans will be
familiar with: the simpler you play it, the stranger it gets,
and there's a musical, emotional distance that must be
achieved the deeper you want to get, like a kind of run-up to
the heart. Shirley Collins always understood this, and so do
Cath and Phil Tyler. Dumb Supper eschews drama, faces up to
death; bypasses romance, goes straight to love.
Frances Morgan
http://www.planbmag.com/content/view/579/39/
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01-Wether's Skin [04:29]
02-Queen Sally [03:18]
03-Fisherman's Girl [03:25]
04-Farewell My Friends [03:34]
05-Death of Queen Jane [03:29]
06-Yellowhammer [02:04]
07-Devil Song [03:53]
08-1000 Years [04:46]
09-False True Love [03:53]
10-Dewdrop [03:02]
11-Morning [03:44]
12-Slumber Boats (Baby's Boats) [02:56]
13-Wild Stormy Deep [04:58]
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47:31 min