Lucy Ward – Pretty Warnings
Betty Beetroot Records – 15 June 2018
Confession time. With her last, October 2015, release I Dreamt I Was A Bird, I thought that Lucy Ward had maybe reached the pinnacle of what she would be able to achieve, such was its excellence. I am happy to stand corrected. With Pretty Warnings, Lucy has surpassed all previous recordings to release a sublime album of the highest quality.
For those new to her name and music, Lucy has a fine pedigree. Having been a finalist in the 2009 BBC Young Folk Awards, she followed this up in 2012 by winning the BBC Radio 2 Folk Horizon Award For Best Newcomer and was nominated for the prestigious Folk Singer Of The Year prize at the 2014 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Three solo album releases and numerous live appearances, together with involvement in a variety of projects including Cupola:Ward and writing music for theatre and films, have helped her develop and evolve as a musician. Over the nigh on three years since the last album, the time has so obviously been spent wisely and profitably.
First track Silver Morning, a gentle description of, at one level, an early morning winter walk, whilst at the same time suggesting a deeper exploration of wandering and isolation, is as an alluring opening track as you could hope to hear. The gentle piano playing of Helga Ragnarsdottir judiciously accompanies in a way that leaves ample space for Ward’s voice, which is in itself an instrument of nacreous beauty, to shine.
A temporal shift takes place with Cold Caller, interpreted by this reviewer as an eerie, shadowy love song in which the singer entreaties the elements on a wet, moonlit evening. Starting with a simple, picked guitar figure and haunting vocal, over time the song develops into a more brooding, psychedelic sonic experience as electric guitar and crash ride cymbal build to a crescendo. Others have likened the vocals on this track to Grace Slick/Jefferson Airplane, but for me, the similarity gains even more credence if you also consider the bolero rhythm of both songs (which on White Rabbit was inspired by the Miles Davis album, Sketches Of Spain).
Whilst this review is being written without any PR or EPK, with the album being co-produced by Stu Hanna, and Stephen Maclachlan, who also contribute guitar & keys and drums/percussion, respectively, and the other credited musicians, Helga Ragnarsdottir, keys & backing vocals, Anna Esslemont, violin & backing vocals, Sam Pegg, electric and double bass, Claire Bostock, cello, all being from the SMacStudios session musician roster, my assumption is that the CD was also recorded there in Red Lodge, Suffolk. And, it has to be said, what a brilliant job has been done here, the production values are first class resulting in crystal clear reproduction over my system.
Pretty Warnings benefits from offering both well-crafted original songs and truly exceptional interpretations of traditional folk-fare, and there is a pleasing symmetry to the running order of the album, with the innovative traditional arrangements being segued in the middle of the running order between the self-penned efforts.
Thus Sunshine Child, a gossamer-light love song featuring some graceful violin playing, is the third of Lucy’s own compositions before the four Tradd. Arr tracks, the first of which is Bill Norrie.
Variously known as Child Maurice/Child Morris/Gil Morice, this classic tragic-ballad in which the jealous husband kills his lady’s suspected lover and returns to her with his head, only to discover that it is her illegitimate son has been recorded by such luminaries as Ewan MacColl, Martin Carthy and Spiers & Boden. In the version presented here, Lucy’s voice, with Helga’s fragile piano accompaniment, is spine-chilling in its delivery. This six minutes and 41 seconds is worth the price of admission on its own.
The album continues with the murder theme, this time of the gallows/final confession type, by way of Maria Martin, Lucy’s arrangement of Murder In The Red Barn/Murder Of Maria Martin. Unlike other recorded versions, Lucy’s highly innovative arrangement presents the song as a slow, smouldering blues, drum and upright bass heavy, with preternatural strings. The story recounts a real murder that took place in Polstead, Suffolk, in 1827. A death mask of the murderer, William Corder, and an account of the case bound in his tanned skin are on display in Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds; thus highly apposite if my assumptions about the recording studio are correct.
Fair & Tender Ladies, described thus by Alan Lomax, ‘This classic Appalachian love song takes the view, which is unusual in American love songs, that love is both sorrowful and dangerous.’, whilst, lyrically, retaining its cautionary warning, is stripped of any ‘country’ influence and offered as an austere, almost ambient-style track.
Mari Vach sees Lucy’s taking the Welsh ballad tune Mari Fach Fy Nghariad, and adding her own words to the song which tells the true, tragic tale of a young 17-year-old girl made pregnant, who gives birth, kills the baby with a pen-knife and is then hanged. With versions known variously as The Cruel Mother/ Green Sidey and The Lady Of York, here, simplicity is the watchword; Lucy has a voice of consummate beauty and its lucidity is given full-rein in a version that tugs long and hard at the emotions.
As mentioned above, the final two tracks are both originals. A rather more cheerful Lazy Day, with gentle strings floating over lyrics that indicate a desire on the part of the singer to stay in bed dreaming the day away, in preference to getting up, leads into the final song, The Sweetest Flowers. With its minimalist piano notes, reminiscent of David Fedele, Lucy’s harmonium, and, once more, gorgeous vocals, the album ends on a perfect, optimistic note
‘A love that can’t be torn asunder
But will bloom forever no matter the weather
The sweetest flowers grow together’
Pretty Warnings is a mesmerising, exquisite album which succeeds in mixing sometimes delicate, always thoughtful, image-laden originals with fresh, innovative re-workings of songs from the traditional folk canon.
If Lucy was a painter, she would be Van Gogh like every single brush-stroke each of her lines carry passion, neither one word too many nor one too few, every note has its place in the composition, painstakingly selected, the listener is drawn in, engaged and emotionally challenged/ affected.
A gorgeous, atmospheric offering of the highest calibre.
https://www.lucywardsings.com/