Midnight Skyracer have come a long way in a very short time. Since forming in 2017, the Anglo-Irish all-female quintet have become festival sensations across the UK and abroad, toured regularly at home and released a critically-lauded debut album. They’re also the first British act to be nominated in the International Bluegrass Music Association awards.
Shadows On the Moon (to be released 5 June on Island Records) is the follow-up to Midnight Skyracer’s 2018 debut, Fire. Recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire, the album is a scintillating mix of hard-driven bluegrass and mountain balladry, both edgy and infectious, tender and tough. Vocals are shared between mandolin player Leanne Thorose and banjoist Tabitha Agnew, while Laura and twin sister Charlotte (guitar), plus double bassist Eleanor Wilkie, provide glistening harmonies. We get our first taste of what’s to come with lead single Break the Rules, the video for which finds Midnight Skyracer banged up in prison. They may not have broken any rules, but they have indeed broken all records in this incredible achievement…outstanding!
The album makes a persuasive case for Midnight Skyracer as Britain’s answer to the progressive bluegrass of Alison Krauss & Union Station. It’s impossible to keep still to the effervescent ‘Brand New Start’ or ‘Crying Wolf’, the latter governed by Laura’s darting fiddle. Nimble instrumental ‘Steaming Buzzard’ and ‘Queen Of Broken Hearts’ are equally as breathless.
By contrast, ‘Right Here With You’ and ‘The Game’ feel like timeless folk songs, one serving as a pledge of romantic fealty and the other a done-me-wrong ballad that manages to be both crestfallen and full of resolve. Tabitha is at her most melancholic on ‘Written On My Heart’, given emotive weight by Leanne’s lovely mandolin break. This is offset by ‘No Point Knockin”, a Western swing masterclass swept along by guitar and fiddle. And, in the great tradition of rural Kentucky folk, the album signs off with a moving evocation of the transition from this life to the next, in the form of ‘Feathers And Down’.
“It’s all very collaborative,” says Laura of the group dynamic. “There’s definitely no bandleader in any sense; onstage and offstage we’re all equal. We all do some writing and contribute to the arrangements. We’re quite different people, but we get on really well.”
This is a key element of Midnight Skyracer. No less an authority than Ron Block, banjoist/guitar player with Alison Krauss & Union Station, has endorsed their approach: “These varied aspects of their musical personalities contribute to the greater good of a band playing for the song, for the singer, for the music.”
With a series of reputable live appearances behind them – including the Cambridge Folk Festival and their biggest crowd to date at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy – Midnight Skyracer are busy lining up festival shows for 2020. “We’re playing bigger and bigger venues every year, so we just want to continue growing the audience,” says Laura.
Shadows On The Moon looks set to spread the word even wider. “Bluegrass is still underrepresented in the UK,” Laura contends. “So it’s exciting that this album is on a major label. It’s great to be able to help put it on the map, but the bottom line is that we all love this music so much.”
UK dates throughout June 2020 including, LONDON’s Kings Place, on Saturday 13 June, and UK answer to Newport Folk Festival – the iconic Black Deer Festival, on 19 June 2020 – full listings on https://www.midnightskyracer.com
Photo Credit: Elly Lucas