Alula Down: Homespun

Alula Down – Homespun

Self Released – 7 November 2018

Alula Down is part of the thriving Weirdshire community of active “brethren” of musicians and artists in Herefordshire (read the Folk Radio UK Agri-Psych feature by kate Gathercole). It’s described as “an experiment in folk song and minimalism”, using voice with instruments made purely of wood and reeds. To all intents and purposes, it’s the duo project of Kate Gathercole and Mark Waters, who are best known as long-time members of psych-folk combo Sproatly Smith (Kate and Mark’s CV to date also includes the band Heed The Thunder and helping out with Vaginapocalypse). According to the press release, Homespun follows two previous Alula Down CDs (from 2008 and 2013 respectively) and a pair of successive Christmas download releases.

Homespun presents a limited-edition CD collection of eight tracks that together last just over half an hour. Two of them (Polly Vaughan and Master Kilby) are fresh settings of traditional texts, and both sport the most fulsome instrumental complement on the disc, with scoring comprising harmonium, violin, double bass and prepared guitar, the curious slitherings of the latter giving something of a weird Harry Partch-like aura to proceedings. The inherent drama of the ballad Polly Vaughan is further accentuated by the presence of insistent guest drumming from Sproatly Smith’s Nic Quinto. Then, right at the very centre of the disc, we encounter Hymn Fifth, a new drone-based two-part harmony setting of a Chartist hymn from an 1845 collection, which – unusually – imparts more of an early-music feel to its incantatory text.

The disc’s five original compositions are characterised by their enigmatic folk poetry and Kate’s crystalline vocal delivery, and yet each one manages to maintain its own distinctive flavour and climate. Two of them (Hereford Garden Dreaming and Grace Lies Down) may be familiar to some listeners from their earlier incarnations on Weirdshire compilations Beating The Bounds and Burning The Bush. The disc opens with the delicately captivating Walked Off, which carries the listener along with its precisely enunciated ukulele part capped at the climax by shruti and bodhrán. The nature portrait Tall Trees is equally beguiling in its own way, and like Grace Lies Down is propelled along by a gently arpeggiated rhythm. Each of the songs embraces an enchanting if enigmatic folk poetry for which Kate’s eloquent, crystalline vocal delivery is ideally suited. The whole CD is superbly cleanly recorded, with every strand of the minimal texture perfectly audible. It’s magic.

The disc’s presentation is, laudably and literally, homespun. It comes in a robust card matchbox, also included within which you’ll find a pressed dried flower and an attractive foldout insert containing credits and monochrome floral drawings by Kate herself.

Order it here.