As two fiddle players work their way through a traditional air in the downstairs bar of the historic Cecil Sharp House, former Bellowhead frontman and Remnant Kings composer Jon Boden (solo) prepares to take the stage in the main hall. There’s no fiddle to hand this time around, instead, he’s armed with an acoustic, an ancient duet concertina and an epic set of post-apocalyptic prog-folk.
The only archival footage of folklorist Cecil Sharp that exists is of Sharp, George Butterworth and Maud & Helen Karpeles merrily Morris dancing together on grainy black-and-white Kinora spool reel. Why don’t we toy with that image and make a few minor adjustments to a few of those film stills…
First, we throw some Bhangra dancing into the mix. Then instead of a garden green, we imagine they’re circling hand-in-hand around a burning barrel in the ruins of a decrepit factory, as their fractured shadows shape-shift and are cast wide on the crumbling brickwork. Outside, a street-carnival rages, fit to rival Diwali and the Lewes Bonfire Night celebrations combined. Now hopefully this scene should look something like the spot our lead protagonist finds himself in, on Afterglow, Boden’s second release in a planned trilogy of concept albums.
Following on from 2009’s Songs From The Floodplain, Afterglow exists in a ‘speculative post-peak-oil future’ and is centred on a Romeo & Juliet style love story. Apparently for this record Boden tried to approach songwriting in the same fashion a novelist might address a book. During the evening’s interview, he seems inspired, fascinated by the literary concept of ‘world-building’ that is now frequently being adapted by Marvel, Harry Potter and other film franchises. He cites the authors Richard Jefferies and John Christopher. Then in a compelling turn, he name-checks Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs also as key influences. An insight which suggests perhaps they had their part to play in the cinematic strings and almost operatic, verging on glam dramatics of Boden’s vocal delivery? Quick side-note: any squeezebox fanatics (I know you’re out there) for a low-key masterpiece be sure to seek out the Remnant Kings’ cover of Hounds of Love if you haven’t already heard it.
His admiration for Win Butler’s chamber rock should come as little surprise. Obviously, at first glance, they’re both big band men – Bellowhead and Arcade Fire – their music sharing an undeniable anthemic spirit and energy. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if much of the inspiration for Boden lies in the way Arcade Fire approach albums conceptually.
Short film Scenes From The Suburbs (which Butler & co. soundtracked and wrote with director Spike Jonze) follows the suburban adventure of a gang of late-teens one summer, cast against a backdrop of oppressive localised military presence. Just like Afterglow, it stirs up a very similar sense of youthful longing and warped nostalgia, and each narrative seems to centre on the strength of the human spirit when facing a bleak dystopia ever lurking on the horizon.
Tonight Boden really is on fine form, his voice gripping and measured. For Afterglow’s more heavily orchestrated, rockier moments he amusingly (but admittedly to wonderful effect) opts for the sweet sustain of his concertina. The rest of the time, often with two capos clasped around the neck of his Martin acoustic, he fluidly fingerpicks in an open Bb tuning. Dextrously making up for the lack of a full band. Performing the album in running order, he opens with the Bowie-inflected, promising fantasy of Moths In The Gaslight. Wrong Side Of Town then follows the gentle refrain of Bee Sting with its rising exuberant chorus.
“When the northern skies ignite, we’ll be blinded by the light,” sings Boden as he continues to barrel through a standout rendition of All The Stars Are Coming Out Tonight. It’s interesting to hear it in this context, without the driving kick, brass and strings of the single. It is a testament to his songwriting that it works so beautifully. “A song is anything that can walk by itself,” urged Dylan on the jacket notes of Subterranean Homesick Blues and All The Stars… takes to the room with a strut in its stride.
A fan during the Q&A asks Boden about the astronomical leanings of his lyrics, to which he details how he wanted the appearance of planets and stars to have a strong presence on the record. The protagonist sees himself in Orion the hunter and this pervading theme of light seems to serve as a metaphor in many ways during the album. In this world enveloped by darkness a glimmer of hope is seized, which might suggest a brighter future after all. As Glenn Kimpton wrote in his Folk Radio UK review, “What runs strong throughout this set is the sense of human emotion and stubborn rallying under duress.”
Boden goes on to share his thoughts on live performance and also stresses the problem he finds with most marketed ‘folk music’; that actually it’s not folk music at all, it’s in fact music inspired by folk. He goes on to discuss his love of pre-Baroque counterpoint and jokes that one of his proudest moments is getting Roll Alabama – a song in the time signature 7/4 – on BBC Radio 2. He then reaches for the guitar once more to end with the gentle journeying of Yellow Lights and the Aubade. The latter signals the last chapter in our tale with a moment of still reflection, as our lead returns home, “under the red sun rising.”
When Boden joined Matthew Bannister last year in his native Loxley Valley for the Folk on Foot Podcast, he avowed (as he does once more tonight) the importance of communal singing and how elitism must remain absent in order to keep the folk tradition alive, “It’s not about preserving the material. What the material allows you to do is preserve the activity, because it’s designed for it: it’s really good for singing together (…) It’s lovely to be part of that continuum of folk song going back hundreds of years and that’s very important to me as well. But the most important thing to me is that people keep singing.”
With that in mind for his encore, Boden encourages the audience into a rousing sing-along on the chorus of Santa Fe Trail, a tune he picked up from the late Peter Bellamy. “But I seen them come down the arroyo, as we crossed on them Arkansas sand. She had smiles like acres of sunflowers, held a quirt in her little brown hand” recalls Boden, before a great “Yo-ho!” yodel hook. It’s a fitting closing note. A cowboy song about the wild pursuit of a dream, with a real Thoreauvian sensibility and a simple sentiment at heart that sings of hope and joy in the presence of one another and our natural world. One can almost recognise our hero’s voice piping up to join in harmony as he makes his homeward ascent, ‘iridescent in the afterglow’.
Catch Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings on tour through March. For full tour details visit http://jonboden.com/shows