Serious Child – Time in the Trees
Four Left Feet Records – 20 March 2020
I bet if you were to read that this album’s creation was the result of a year in the Sussex woods by an artist more typically at home in cities, you’d quickly settle on some preconceived ideas about what kind of music would result. Were you to continue to discover that this musicians rural escape was undertaken with an ambition to uncover deep truths about the natural and modern world, I’m sure that expectation would be enhanced. Add to that the involvement of acclaimed traditional folk musicians John McCusker and Bethany Porter then you’d be forgiven for expecting something raw, acoustic and stripped back. Perhaps quite lengthy and hypnotic pieces. I’ll confess that’s what I was expecting to hear. But what you get with ‘Time In The Trees’ is nowhere near as one dimensional or predictable as that. It’s a collection of songs which do indeed meditate on the natural world and the rather confused values of modern living. But they do so by entertaining the listener with a sonic palette that’s akin to a traditional singer-songwriter pop album. The kind of album that you’d expect Daniel Lanois to have a hand in. One that serves the tradition by giving each piece the adventurous treatment it deserves, from dipping into vaudeville to grooving on a pict. The songs are united by the thoughts of the author, but musically they are a wonderfully diverse selection of vignettes and country rambles.
Serious Child is the creative identity for vocalist and musician Alan Young. His 2018 debut album ‘Empty Nest’ was well received and like that album, this one continues the close collaboration between Young, Chris Pepper and producer Boo Hewerdine. Describing the process, Alan looks back on an exciting journey. “We wanted to use ancient and modern instruments to capture the pace and mood of the trees and the earth while acknowledging we all live in the modern world. I wanted to take people to a place where time flows differently, and success isn’t measured by how busy you are”. That blending of the old and new is really where the pleasure is to be found in listening. I’d agree that there is a sense of space, an ebb and flow. But it’s not quite a timelessness or an emptiness. The modern world is still there; it’s inescapable. Rattling our cages and pounding on our senses. You experience all of that from ‘Time In The Trees’, and there’s the odd laugh thrown in too.
Album opener ‘Snowflake’ sings about healing the anger and division found on Twitter. It seems to suggest that the weight of all that conflict “might surprise us all”. From the outset, it’s abundantly clear that the music is not going to be anything like an ethereal dreamscape, far more a jamboree rich in melody and versatility. This track shuffles along breezily with a delicate piano pattern illustrating the fall of ten million snowflakes.
‘Brambles’ explores the world of botanist Dr Mark A. Spencer, who wrote a book called ‘Murder Most Florid’ which reveals haunting secrets hidden in woodlands. With deep bass grooves ushering the song into life and a human beatbox sound marking out the tempo, this is the kind of experimental field ploughing that Peter Gabriel used to do so well; yielding a track from what sounds like the rhythm upwards and decorating this backbone with audio fills and a vocal that dips a toe into thespian waters, injecting the words with more botanical wonder than most singers could hope for.
‘Falling’ is like a bit of light relief, the likes of which wouldn’t be out of place in a musical—apparently written about the kind of dreams people have where they are falling. This one pushes all the knees up, jazz hands chorus line buttons you could dream of and includes some wonderful stop-start moments immediately after the lyrics “until you stop”. That empty space cleverly evokes the shock people experience when a sudden fall is terminated by a painful thud then silence.
The tempo shifts continue thick and fast. ‘A Little Space’ is a gorgeous ode to doggedly protecting one’s personal space whilst not wishing to shut out all human interactions and relationships, it’s just a question of balance and respecting personal needs. The song is certainly elevated by some soothing Boo Hewerdine harmonium. Alan has included in his sleeve notes the personal touch of revealing what inspired many of the songs. So, we learn that the delightfully tongue-in-cheek ‘Superficial’ came from an overheard phone call. Among the numerous memorable lines on the subject of people setting out unromantic criteria for potential romance is “you don’t have to be too handsome; I don’t even mind a little fat. But you have to have your own teeth and the keys to a Mayfair flat”. Following on from that slice of acute social observation is a singular statement of intent called ‘I Grow Old’, which boldly promises to pursue the choices of personal preference and to hell with what anyone thinks about that.
With long term collaborators Carla March on backing vocals and Steve Welch on bass, Alan confronts feelings of separation in the songs ‘Long Slow Distance’ and ‘Off The Grid’. Again, the latter is a track that shimmers with the satisfying elements of late-twentieth-century pop song writing; a singalong chorus where the music seems to capture exactly what the words are describing, disappearing out of the mainstream and fading into the margins. In a world where Facebook likes and algorithms are a part of our daily experience, haven’t we all dreamed of escaping it all and going off the grid at some point?
‘The Oak’ was co-written with Uist musician Jamie MacRae, who Alan acknowledges as an inspiration for the records whole concept thanks to his connection to the stones of the Scottish Isles. You notice as he sings from the perspective of a grand old English oak tree, that his voice has an appropriately seasoned timbre to it. And to say he’s working from that angle is not to imply that the tune is comedic or contrived in any way. Absolutely not, it is sung with an authority befitting the Earths lungs and the natural life forces all around us that, it could be argued, are a lot more vital to the future health of the planet than us human beings. Once again this is a sprightly piece, with violin and whistle giving the track a traditional Irish flavour.
‘Bonsai’ is another song that directly references trees and the differences in their scale and lifespans to humans. Chiako Yamamoto’s life is dedicated to the rituals of caring for trees, a thoroughly modern concern ironically and she was a direct influence on this closing song. It concludes an album which should get us all thinking about our relationship with the natural world amid the clutter of the electronic jungle that can monopolise our attention. Appropriately, ‘Time In The Trees’ is set to be released to coincide with the Spring Equinox. It’s an album that reveals so much more than you may initially be ready for, making it ripe for repeated listening. I hope its message resonates during the loveliest season when we all begin to step back out and breathe in the fresh spring air.
Time in the Trees is out on the Spring Equinox on Friday, 20 March 2020 and will be available in digital, CD and Vinyl formats via Bandcamp: https://seriouschild.bandcamp.com/album/time-in-the-trees
Find out more here: https://seriouschild.com/