In September Red River Dialect presented us with their fifth album Abundance Welcoming Ghosts. As mentioned in Bob Fish’s album review on Folk Radio, it was an album deeply rooted in the folk tradition which also exercised restraint and abandon in equal measure. The fact that the album still stands as a rewarding cohesive whole, reflects strongly on both the vision and musicianship of the players. He concluded his review:
“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.”
The band recently revealed a new animated video for the album track “RV Kistvaen” which looks to the folklore of the South West for inspiration. It was made by animator Robin Lane Roberts.
The video is inspired by the “Money Pit” legend, one of many folktales from Dartmoor in South West England in which someone raids a pre-historic burial chamber seeking ancient wealth, but loses something more vital in the act. A “kistvaen” is a Bronze Age tomb, made of granite slabs inlaid in the ground and covered with a capstone, and is particular to Dartmoor. The name is derived from “cist-veyn” in the ancient Cornish-Celtic language, and “cist-faen“ in Welsh; Cist meaning chest, and “veyn” or “faen” meaning stone.
In this particular tale a jolly farmer dreams of a local kistvaen overflowing with money. He breaks open the tomb, spurred on by a mocking raven, only to find a small piece of black flint, shaped like a heart. Some speculate that this may have been a Neolithic arrowhead. He clings to this treasure, and becomes cruel, morose and bitter. Only the playfulness of his child, who takes the flint out to the moors to play with and loses it, relieves this heavy curse.
The lyrics speak of a child throwing stones, ‘alone and burrowing in’, and later of a ‘kist-open mind’. David says of the song: “it was inspired by a journey into Dartmoor, and the lyrics venture into buried sadnesses of the past. Having been uncovered, these artefacts can unsettle and cause pain, but with compassion for self and others, they can be released back to the wild equanimity of the moorlands.”
TOUR DATES:
14 February – Plymouth – The Junction
15 February – Penryn – The Fish factory
16 – February – Bristol – The Cube
17 February – York – The Crescent (with Ye Vagabonds)
18 February – Glasgow – The Glad Cafe
19 February – Todmorden – The Golden Lion
22 February – London – Rough Trade East
http://www.redriverdialect.com/
Photo credit: Hannah Rose Whittle