Hanterhir – The Saving of Cadan
Easy Action Records – 27 July 2018
In his book The Ballad of Britain, Will Hodgkinson points out that Cornwall has a ‘culture distinct from anywhere else in Britain’ as he recounts his meeting short-lived band Thistledown, recording Murray Young in a lay-by (singing about dogging) and meeting up with Clive Palmer and talking about Cob. I mention this as it sets the scene, that Cornwall has that certain separateness and difference that is a product of its geography, its attractiveness to artistically-bent people and its own folklore: Celtic, Arthurian, Faerie.
Hanterhir continues in this tradition of being a bit different. They have a large following in that county and have just released a concept album, The Saving of Cadan. The thread, the storyline, is concerned with a boy, Cadan, who tries to drown himself in a lake on Carn Marth, an ancient hill in West Cornwall. He is saved by Morwenna, the Lady of the Lake and a cursed spirit. The tale, recounted through the songs, is told in a mixture of English and Cornish.
Concept albums have their place, but does this limited edition 5-sided vinyl LP (or 2 CD) set make it? Popularised by the likes of Zappa’s Freak Out! and The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s, concept albums became the thing, particularly for prog rockers. Sometimes they can be tight and neat and like a good short story; at other times they are rather like a great sprawling morass with huge chunks of pseudo-classical music and lots of organ.
I have to say that you don’t get the rambling pseudo classical nor the over-used organ with The Saving of Cadan. You do get a lot of tunes – 21 tracks in all, and that will take some listening to in one sitting in this shuffle play age.
Listening to the album you are very much aware of the labels that might be attached that explain the antecedents to the music. Indeed the publicity notes seven styles that have been mixed and manipulated to form their sound. I actually think that that is: a) jolly unfair and b) really quite meaningless. When I listen to them, I get echoes, memories, of snatches from other bands, but then that has always been the case. They should be listened to in their own right and unless a band is a direct copy, a pastiche, then credit should be given to their originality and not addressed as a composite of all that has gone before.
Which, slight rant over, takes me to their sound. There is a lot of loud and a lot of quiet. There is saxophone, often set back from the front, a backdrop of a cloud passing here, or a passage of time there. With 21 tracks it is always difficult to create variety yet maintain cohesion and I think these guys have mostly managed that. The opening number, Hello Sunshine, the longest on the album, gives a flavour of the sounds to come but also acts as overture with a hint at a theme that is developed in the final tune – neatly done. There are a few tracks, like Morwenna And The Lamb that start with an acoustic guitar that then explode into heavy electric. And there are tracks that rock in a prog sort of way (such as Delivered Hope) and there are those that make you sit up and think what a contrast.
One of the other necessities of a concept album was that despite its cohesion, it must also have tracks that can stand alone and these certainly meet that criteria.
Does The Saving of Cadan make it as a concept album? I think so. The stories, the lyrics are at times a tad indistinguishable and the Cornish words will mean nothing to a lot of listeners. However, that has never stopped us listening to singers from Mali or Senegal, so why should it here? The musical language is clear, interesting and yes, sustainable and I would encourage you to find the 1hour 41 minutes to listen to it as one piece. However, it also works in chunks. It has grown on me over 3 or 4 plays and I have my personal favourite tracks (The Fisherman, Or Without You) but I also know that my likes are fickle and that these will change.
A long piece of work, good to listen to and fits well into that Cornish separateness and difference. Now is the time for it to be brought out to a wider audience. Listen to it and share it.
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