The Bairns

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Binding: Audio CD EAN: 5099950438020 Label: EMI Manufacturer: EMI Number Of Discs: 1 Publisher: EMI Release Date: 2007-08-20 Studio: EMI
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Stunned Comment: We caught Rachel Unthank at Cambridge Folk Festival in 07 and were blown away. It reminded me of some of the cutting age post punk stuff (hardly sounds folk!) in the early to mid 80s, not that we can trace much of this but vague memories of Peel, and support groups to the Nightingales and Terry and Jerry (sorry I am indulging myself here). So after playing the Bairns to death, and tiring of it a little, totally surprised when we saw them live again to appreciate how wonderful this is and to have to play it once again. Brilliant that a whole new audience can now appreciate it through the mercury nominations and even more wonderful to meet Becky at the Big Chill, even if I had forgotten the camera at the time (hope that she doesn't think she has a middle aged groupie) Customer Rating: Summary: Samaritans album of the year ! Comment: After hearing a lot of good things about Rachel Unthank in the press and catching a couple of promising sounding tracks on Mike Harding's Folk on 2, I was looking forward to hearing The Bairns in its entirety. As the finishing bars melted away, I had already lost the will to live and was furiously trying to remember how to fashion a hangman's knot ! This is really, really depressing album. Like June Tabor, Rachel U has a melancholic voice which is perfect for the moody,tragedy of the her songs' subject matter. Of course death,lost love and regret are stock in trade in Folk music. Unfortunately,Rachel's interpretations makes a traditional mournful ballad like say 'Little Musgrave' delivered by someone like Martin Simpson sound like Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by comparison! So many tracks sound like real dirges with a gloomy single piano chord counterpointing the dreary vocals. On one or two tracks where The Winterset chip in, there is the suggestion of something rather more uplifting behind the misery but regretably, these tracks are totally overwhelmed by that bloody plodding piano chord and that lifeless Geordie voice. Am I being unfair ? Possibly,as someone who is more a fan of what is now termed 'Nu-Folk', the finger in yer ear traditional stuff quite often leaves me cold. The Bairns is very much in the conservative tradition. If people think The Smiths were miserablists then Rachel Unthank makes them sound like a Caribbean steel drum band playing Black Lace's greatest hits ! Customer Rating: Summary: Stunningly beautiful Comment: "So we'll cry 'fareweel Regality', and we'll cry 'fareweel the Liberty', to honest friends' civility, to winter's frost and fire" I brought this album having caught the above snippet of "Fareweel Regality" [Sic.] playing late at night on the Radio. After a deft internet search through songs played that night, I managed to track the song down as coming from this album. Whilst I am quite a folk fan, I'd not heard of Rachel Unthank and The Winterset (fantastic name for a band!) before and so I procured the album. Whilst "Fareweel Regality" is still my favourite track, the entire album is absolutely beautiful. The voices, lyrics, tunes and arrangements are all superb - highly recommended! Customer Rating: Summary: Feeling Depressed? Buy This And Feel Worse!! Comment: Having bought the previous album and found it patchy I bought this and found it even patchier! To my ears, there're 3 great tracks and the rest are dirges. Life is depressing enough without having musical accompaniment! I'd love to hear Rachel Unthank address some uplifting tunes! Customer Rating: Summary: Good, no make that very good Comment: Sleeve notes crediting the stamping of stiletto's as instruments, well that sets the tone. The girls all seem to thoroughly enjoy their music, and it is a pleasure to share their enjoyment with them. You read so many times of artists being made to do this or that by their record company, and in so doing loosing the essence of what they are. Well that is never going to be something levelled at the Unthank girls and their band. This recording is completely real and totally unaffected by the vagaries of fashion. Well it is after all traditional music and the record industry tends to leave that well alone...thank goodness. It is a tad dark in places, the subject matter is not conducive to sweetness and light after all. That does not mean it is without power, far from it. It is a truly excellent piece of work, I picked up on Rachels work with the Cruel Sister album, and I was astonished at her youth. The surety of vision inherent in the delivery of the songs on Cruel Sister is if anything exceeded on this offering. Much has been made of her voice and to be fair she really is much more earthly than angelic. Comparisons to Eliza Carthy are understandable, and probably flatter the girls as they must be fans, but where Eliza is deeply grounded in a traditional delivery, there is something more edgy and modern with the Winterset. It is, as my ladyfriend says, wonderful to hear their North East accent come through, but it is more than that you can hear the girls soul in these records. It is a thoroughly modern take on a disparate mix of songs from the self penned through the traditional on to the leftfield modern classic. I should say I loath the words FOLK. It has become anathema to so many people, the sound my grandad listens too. Not cool etc. I like to call it Roots music, and boy is this a good rootsy record. Loath Folk Music? Give this a try anyway, it is that good Love Folk Music? You will love it More Reviews