Fernhill are one of most amazing and beautiful sounding folk bands I’ve ever heard. How can anyone resist the spell-binding and beautiful voice of Julie Murphy and the bands clever combination of subtle brass, guitar, flute and fiddle amongst other instruments to make such a uniquely enriching sound. It doesn’t get any better. They have just released a new album titled canu rhydd which features eight new pieces which really shows them off to their fullest.
The album title, canu rhydd, literally translates ‘free poetry’, is written according to the free will of the poet.
It is unconstrained by patronage or by the twenty four accredited meters of the secret craft of bardic poetry as laid out by einion offeiriad. From its sixteenth century flowering, came tumbling the multitude of unattached verses kept safe on the tongues of unselfconscious singers over the centuries. with these we start our songs…
The album opens to a lovely welsh song, adar, which features the following chorus:
i will sing and be happy
like the nightingale on the thorn
even though the thorn pricks me
i will sing and let it do so
The track starts with the gentlest of guitar finger picking before picking up to a gentle strum accentuated and accompanied by Christine Cooper on fiddle, the first Fernhill recording to feature her. It’s when Tomos Williams brass playing (trumpet, flugelhorn. corn) comes in that you get to hear the extraordinary sound of Fernhill to the fullest. There is no extravagance in their playing…it is offered as a subtle undertone to Julie’s voice. There is a freedom to their music which makes the album title ever the more apt and intriguing.
The album features both songs sung in welsh and english, the first of which is When I was in my Prime. This song of blighted love is known as The Sprig of Thyme, or in the older variant, The Seeds of Love. The song is credited to a Mrs. Fleetwood Habergham, of Habergham in the county of Lancaster, who expressed the thoughts of her unhappy married life in this way.
when i was in my prime
i flourished like a vine
there came along a false young man
he stole away my timea gardener was standing by
three flowers gave to me
the pink, the violet and the rose
but i refused all threethe pink’s no flower at all
it fades away too soon
the violets are too pale a bloom
i think i’ll wait till junein june the red rose blooms
but that’s no flower for me
in june i’ll pick the red rose up
and i’ll plant a willow treeand the willow tree will twist and the willow tree will twine
i wish i was in that young man’s arms
the one, the love of mine
that stole away my timegreen willow i will sing
green willow be my song
and everyone shall see my plant
oh i love that false young man
You’ll hear no more beautiful a version than this. On Diddan Julie again turns up the emotion and sings a mournful song of lost love.
o my dear take a reed
and hold its both ends
and cut it exactly in half
like you broke my heart
Forest really captured me. It’s a traditional English Christmas carol dating to the Renaissance era and I first heard Jean Ritchie sing it (I think…). Tomos’s playing on this track get’s very free and expressive with echoes of blues in it. Combining this alongside Julie’s more traditional delivery works magic. This album is incredibly clever and original and you have no idea of how much of a pleasure it is to review something like this.
On glyn cynon I wasn’t to sure what to expect after the inital trumpet intro. Again the band express their freedom. glyn tawe offers the most beautiful welsh song which translates:
a good place is ystradgynlais
a good place is ystradfawr
a good place is all glyntawe
from abercraf down
a special place to graze animals
is the black mountain in carmarthenshire
are any of these equal
to jack my love’s farm
unexpectedly part way through Christine begins to talk of those memories of Jack’s farm before returning to the song. Sourced from Maria Jane Williams (1795-1873) who was a pioneer collector of Welsh folk songs.
On y fwynlan o serch Julie is joined by Ceri Rhys Matthews for a spell binding combination!
will you come, loving gentle beauty
before the priest truly
skilfuly i’ll bind your hand
without care for houses or land
and there i’ll take you as my partner
before all this company
plainly in welsh words
as long as we two are in this world
For the final track Like the Snow Julie and Christine join force for quite a haunting song:
tell me where did helen go
here is where she had her dwelling
she has vanished like the snow
where there is no way of telling
here is where she had her dwelling
all the while they come and they go
where there is no way of telling
she has vanished like the snow
The song is by Sydney Carter and featured on Lovely in the Dances – Songs of Sydney Carter [Plant Life Records PLR 032 (LP, UK, August 1981)] which featured an all star cast of artists including Maddy Prior, John Kirkpatrick, Peter Knight and many more. Most of us know the song Lord of the Dance which was written by Sydney Carter in 1963! No, it is not a hymn! Sydney died in 2004 so it’s nice to see a song like this included.
All in all canu rhydd is a superb and magical album. I hope this exposes the talents of Fernhill to you all, they deserve a lot more exposure as they are definately in a class of their own when it comes to folk music and progressive interpretation of traditonal music. Listen to it yourself now:
Fernhill are:
julie murphy-voice, sruti
christine cooper-fiddle, voice
tomos williams-trumpet, flugelhorn
ceri rhys matthews-guitar, flute, voice
Make sure you buy a copy via: http://fernhill.bandcamp.com/album/canu-rhydd
also visit Fernhill’s website: http://www.fernhill.info/