Neil Morton
FEATURED SONG OF THE WEEK
Ancient Light: I’m With Her
The joyous occasional collaboration that is I’m With Her makes you hanker for a more permanent arrangement. Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins are each known for their sparkling solo work but when they play as a trio there is even more magic in the air. Their latest single, Ancient Light, our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com, is as welcome as sunshine at winter’s end.
Ancient Light will be the opening track on their long-awaited second album, Wild And Clear And Blue, scheduled for release on May 9, seven years after their celebrated debut See You Around. There have been other sporadic originals and covers, such as Crossing Muddy Waters, Send My Love (To Your New Lover), Call My Name, Wake Me When It’s Over and Espresso to maintain the flame but our craving for more has been insatiable.
This time around the sound is fuller and more ambitious, thanks in part to producer Josh Kaufman, a member of another folk supergroup Bonny Light Horseman. Jarosz says: ‘Because we’ve played together so much at this point, we have a far stronger sense of what we’re capable of creating together. We wanted to be open to anything on this record, and give ourselves more space for the solo sections to really breathe.’
Unlike the sparse intimacy of the earlier record, our first sample of elaboration reveals textures and sonic shifts that surprise and delight. The song is a tender meditation on ancestral ties and cycles of life, adorned with a wonderful instrumental break featuring Watkins’ skilful layering of fiddle and cello. ‘Ancient Light sets the tone for the entire album, communing with our past and future selves,’ say the band, ever indebted to their traditional roots.
With Jarosz on lead vocals, Ancient Light embodies a spirit of defiance as she sings of navigating the havoc around her (‘While everything’s unravelling/ I’m building a fire/ Sparks and smoke rings/ Fill up the night/ When it catches/ I’ll be swimming in the ancient light’). ‘I love that song being the first track and setting a tone of joyful melancholy,’ says Jarosz. ‘There are definitely some darker, more sombre moments throughout the record, but to me there’s something beautiful about addressing these heavier themes in a way that’s more of a celebration of life rather than a grieving of what’s been lost.’
Thinking of who came before
I hear them knock at the door
They been a long time comin’
Mmmm when I let ’em in
I feel their breath on my skin
They’ve been a long time gone
We’ll be dancing
Oh what a sight
When they get here
I’ll be swimming in the ancient light
The bridge to Ancient Light includes a reference to Mother Eagle (Sing Me Alive), another moving track that ends with a gorgeous interlacing of the trio’s voices. ‘To me those last 30 seconds of Mother Eagle are like a thesis statement for what this band is about,’ says Jarosz. ‘Our voices weaving around each other and making the song feel so full without a lot of different sounds going on – that feels so quintessentially us.’
The album was recorded at two New York studios, The Outlier Inn in the Catskills and The Clubhouse in Rhinebeck. The three women are remarkably versatile musicians: Jarosz on mandolin, octave mandolin, guitar, and banjo; O’Donovan on guitar and piano; Watkins on fiddle, cello and organ. Kaufman is the genuine polymath (nylon string guitar, tenor guitar bass, percussion, piano, organ, electric guitar on Ancient Light alone) and drummer JT Bates makes a valued contribution.
The three Americans discovered their near-telepathic chemistry during an impromptu performance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2014 and soon founded I’m With Her. Over the years the multi-Grammy winners have racked up countless live shows but have been too busy making their own records to produce more trio collections. ‘I’ve been a long time coming,’ they sing on Ancient Light.
Wild And Clear And Blue will help to correct that imbalance. Such is their generosity of spirit they decided to share the writing credits on all 11 tracks. ‘When we write together it’s almost like we’re a three-headed creature – there’s never any need to take ownership of ideas, and always an ease of letting go when something isn’t working,’ says O’Donovan, of Crooked Still fame.
The wistful title track, inspired by two of their treasured musical forebears, Nanci Griffith and John Prine, was the first song written for the new album. ‘So much of this record is about connecting with your past and figuring out what you want for your future, finding yourself and finding the people you love,’ says Watkins, who has another trio, the re-formed Nickel Creek, to keep her busy. ‘It’s a journey that everybody takes, and this is our way of singing through it.’
As long as that future journey includes more trio performances – an extensive tour, which includes a London date, runs from April to November – and precious records, we’ll be with them and their heavenly harmonies.
Looks Like The End Of The Road: Alison Krauss & Union Station
The deliciously dark Looks Like The End Of The Road looks like a new beginning for Alison Krauss & Union Station. The single, our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com, will be the opening track of their forthcoming album, Arcadia, their first recorded work in 14 years.
Remember Paper Airplane? Was it really that long ago? That bewitching crystalline voice is back in harness with the dazzling dobro of Jerry Douglas on a song written by fellow Nashville resident Jeremy Lister that immediately struck a chord with the Illinois-born fiddle-playing singer.
Krauss says: ‘Usually, I find something that’s a first song, and then things fall into place. That song was Looks Like the End of the Road. It just felt so alive – and as always, I could hear the guys already playing it.’
The other guys in the bluegrass band are Ron Block (banjo and guitars), bassist Barry Bales and stellar new recruit Russell Moore on vocals, guitar and mandolin. Moore, frontman for IIIrd Tyme Out, is the International Bluegrass Music Association’s most decorated male vocalist of all time.
After releasing their last album Krauss and her Union Station cohorts took time out to build their solo careers and collaborate with other artists. Collectively, the group have more than 70 Grammy awards to their name. Looks Like The End Of The Road was the powerful song that brought them back together. Krauss’ shimmering, seemingly effortless vocal reflects on life’s joy and the losses that have scarred it.
It’s the end of the circus
And I’m feeling sad like a clown
My makeup is drowning in
Blood, sweat and tears
From my heart and I fear that
When I look around
I lost what I found
When I started off
Never thought I’d cross
The lines that were drawn
A long time ago
Are buried and gone
In lies and ego
And I drank it down
But can’t cover up
The lives that I’ve lost
I’ve run out of luck
Goodbye to the world that I know
Looks like the end of the road
Arcadia is described as a collection of ‘contemporary reflections of history’, 10 tracks that ‘transcend time, reveal beautiful and tragic truths, and reaffirm why the group remains one of the most influential, widely celebrated acts of the past four decades’.
Krauss adds: ‘The stories of the past are told in this music. It’s that whole idea of in the good old days when times were bad. There’s so much bravery and valour and loyalty and dreaming, of family and themes of human existence that were told in a certain way when our grandparents were alive. Someone asked me: ‘How do you sing these tragic tunes?’ I have to. It’s a calling. I feel privileged to be a messenger of somebody else’s story. And I want to hear what happened.’
The self-produced album, its writers including Robert Lee Castleman, Alison’s brother Viktor Krauss, Bob Lucas, JD McPherson and Sarah Siskind, arrives on March 28 before a 75-date US tour kicks off in Kentucky in April. There is a lone Alison Krauss composition, Richmond On The James, a co-write with GT Burgess. Another Lister offering, There’s A Light Up Ahead, closes the record.
Moore, who replaced Dan Tyminski, is showcased on the traditional-sounding second single, Granite Mills. Krauss says: ‘We all met when Dan left the band, and Jerry asked me, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Russell Moore’, and they all said, ‘Absolutely!’ I couldn’t believe it when we went into the studio and his voice came through the speakers. He just stands there and sings with his hands in his pockets, and he kills it. The first song he did was Granite Mills and about 10 minutes in, Ron was covering his mouth because he started giggling. Russell came in and inspired us all.’
Bleak tales always sound beautiful in the care of Krauss and company. Welcome back.