Red River Dialect – Abundance Welcoming Ghosts
Paradise of Bachelors – 27 September 2019
Abundance Welcoming Ghosts, the fifth offering from David Morris and Red River Dialect is a disc travelling twin paths simultaneously. Deeply rooted in the folk tradition, songs build organically, yet at a moment’s notice, they explode into myriads of sound that exorcise ghosts of legendary bands like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, reinvigorating the format.
Recorded in just four days at Mwnci Studios in southwest Wales by Jimmy Robertson, the band uses restraint and abandon in equal measure, knowing there would be a long hiatus while David Morris spent nine months on a meditation retreat in Nova Scotia. They play with raw abandon, summoning up instrumental ghosts and wizards. Drummer Kiran Bhatt keeps the pulse while packing measures with unlikely yet joyous fills, Robin Stratton’s work on piano and keys recalls Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. Burning electric guitar work by Simon Drinkwater and the electric bass of Coral Kindred Boothby go back and forth between gently watering the soil and scorching the earth, while Ed Sanders violin work leaves one gasping for air.
There are traces of John Martyn in My Friend, where Morris recounts a relationship he hasn’t visited in quite some time. Though he looks back fondly, he acknowledges that time isn’t always as kind as imagined, “it seems like we remember those old days in very different ways, is our friendship through? I don’t want it to be the end but know, that if it must be so, if I have to let you go, I am grateful to you.”
Opening with a simple guitar before a cymbal crash brings in, violin and piano, Snowdon is a telling tale. As the song says, “This is the closest point in Wales to heaven, the closest point to heaven in Wales.” Yet the summit is never reached and all that remains are three postcards and memories. As is so often the case the journey can be more important than actually reaching the summit.
Red River Dialect summons up the best in the folk-rock tradition, playing with the same fevered inspiration to inspire a new generation. Look no further than Salvation, where a simple acoustic guitar phrase explodes into a full band rave out, as Morris sings, It has taken time to know that being in the flow can mean being alone.” The electric guitar opening Red River has a mysterious quality to it as the song offers a compelling accounting of how the Cree of the First Nations were taken as wives by the men exploring Manitoba.
It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. Yet with Abundance Welcoming Ghosts Red River Dialect has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.
Pre-Order the album via Amazon
London album launch celebration show on Saturday, November 16th at Servant Jazz Quarters in London, tickets here
http://www.redriverdialect.com/
Photo Credit: Alice Jackson