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Product Description
Review
Once in a while, an album turns up which just gobsmacks you with its originality and unexpectedness. Rachel Unthank & The Winterset's Cruel Sister (2005) was an outstanding debut but its successor is on a different plane altogether: The Bairns inhabits some other dimension in which four young women channel the genius loci of England's North-East into a hauntingly uplifting aural experience.
The band's unique sound revolves around Rachel and Becky Unthank's unaffected, richly regional voices but it's a true ensemble, with Niopha Keegan's fiddle soaring or weeping on demand and much of the power stemming from the absolute conviction of Belinda O'Hooley's dashingly versatile piano playing.
It's an album with a cinematic quality, huge in dramatic atmosphere. Passages of blazing grandeur switch to phrases so sparse and spooky you can see the tumbleweed blowing by. Songs both traditional and contemporary share a commonality of spirit and tone that links new and old: O'Hooley's Whitethorn - a bruised tale of infant mortality - springs from the same well of human suffering as the trad Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk, a tipsy, whirling waltz of a song about booze and marital abuse.
Terry Conway's Fareweel Regality (a song of such moving lyrics and honest delivery that dry eyes aren't an option) sits perfectly with similarly doughty northern material (jaunty segued snippets from Northumbrian Minstrelsy; the tense, dialect-laden Felton Lonnin). Equally epic are Robert Wyatt's Sea Song (an inspired inclusion with hypnotic foot percussion and spacey harmonies) and the unearthly, improvisatory Newcastle Lullaby which closes the album.
There's a real rootedness to this music, a direct line to something old - mysterious, blood-and-bones old - and a constant dance between that ancient earthiness and an approach that's totally of today. While the creative input of producer, sound engineer and manager Adrian McNally to RUTW's work is noted, there's a numinous quality to this album which is deeply matrifocal.
Live, they're fresh and funny and every bit as brilliant as this record. Folk song's all about connection and communication - gifts that are second nature for Rachel Unthank & The Winterset. --Mel Ledgard
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
..... above and beyond.......,
By
This review is from: The Bairns (Audio CD)
To tell the truth there is very little I can add that hasn't already been said by those reviewers more knowledgeable and eloquent. Most here obviously feel the same way I do about this music Still there is something about "The Bairns" that creates a need to share my delight.
I discovered this album as part of my annual buying of the "Mercury Prize shortlist". Suffice to say all of the others have already faded away into the background and pall in comparison to this exquisite piece of work. I remember the Guardian blabbing on about The Winterset when this was released but did the shameful "folk: I don't really do folk" thing and ignored it. My embarrassment at that earlier narrowness of vision is luckily smothered by my sheer joy of finally discovering what I was missing. Let me start by saying that I have never heard anything like this before. This is something above and beyond the term "music". It's an experience that honestly transcends everything I have heard and loved in the past. As you immerse yourself in this album moments of devastating, desperate beauty emerge, entangling and drawing you further into the overriding hypnotic framework and gently rhythmic flow that flawlessly holds this exceptional work together. This is a collection of tunes that will move you deeply, sometimes to tears, sometimes to laughter. I recently saw them live (which mere words cannot recommend strongly enough but it is, incredibly, even better live) and was somewhat relieved and amused to see other people nearby wiping away discreetly shed tears. It was "Blackbird" and "Sea song" that initially hooked me but it was "Felton Lonnin", "Blue's Gaen Oot O'the Fashion" and especially "I Wish" that reeled me in. Now I'm hopelessly and wonderfully under the spell of this towering achievement. Do they actually know how good this album is? Are they aware what they've created? Can they possibly produce something this perfect again? I certainly hope so because I just can't stop listening to this. Months later and all other music is still strangely irrelevant. I know little about music but I think it's safe to say what's so very special about "The Bairns" is the overall structure and the arrangements. All the elements that make up each track work so perfectly together and something that initially seems relatively simplistic reveals layer upon layer of depth both audible and emotional. Like an earlier reviewer I'm usually reaching for the hankies before "Fareweel Regality" has finished and I'm at a total loss to explain why.
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful!,
By
This review is from: The Bairns (Audio CD)
I'd eyed this CD up a few times until I finally got round to listening to some samples on the band's MySpace page, after which I went out and purchased the album. Firstly, this isn't a CD which rewards instantly if you do the quick flick throught the tracks that so many of us do when we get a pile of new discs, and its much better for it. Take the time to sit and listen to this properly and by half way through the first track you won't be able to switch it off until the last notes have played. This is folk at its absolute very best, performed in imaginative arrangements and covering the full gamut of life as only folk music can really do. It is nice too to see a Robert Wyatt song appearing on this CD as evidence that Unthank is interested not only in exploring traditional folk tales and tunes but also in extending the folk repertoire to include the best of new(ish) songwriting. Don't hesitate to buy this. It is wonderful.
44 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My eyes have been opened to folk,
By War Baby (Manchester, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Bairns (Audio CD)
I am not a folk officianado or a big fan of the genre. Nevertheless, a friend persuaded me to purchase this album as he proclaimed that the strength of the performances, songs etc crossed all boundaries. High praise... and, for once, not ill-founded.
In fact, I have become so attached to this CD that I may be forced to rethink my albums of the year. And yes, this could well be my number one for 2007. The simple fact of the matter is that 'The Bairns' has a truly timeless quality. It is wonderfully arranged and the piano playing and vocal harmonies, in particular, incredibly creative. Undoubtedly one of the most haunting, yet uplifting, CDs in my pretty extensive collection. Far better than Polly Harvey's new record, which actually treads a not too dissimilar path. All in all, anyone who loves passionate female performers - from Kate Bush, Joanne Newsom etc to Bats For Lashes - will love this album. I'm not ready to purchase a wooly jumper or grow a beard yet, and thankfully this traditional, but very fresh sounding, album doesn't make me feel alienated for not being of that ilk. The northumbrian lasses have done good.
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