Will Pound – A Day Will Come
Lulubug Records (Lulubug005) – 8 May 2020
Interviewing Will at festivals last summer, there was only one thing he really wanted to talk about, his project exploring the folk music of all 27 EU countries. Having journeyed around Europe earlier in the year, principally to countries he’d not experienced previously, he was heavily engaged in composing, arranging and recording the music that had emerged. The results are now available for us all to enjoy on A Day Will Come, featuring Will, an ensemble of four musicians and a poet, plus a handful of guests. The initial plan included a tour by the ensemble to coincide with the album launch, but coronavirus now means touring is delayed until May 2021. The whole project was made possible thanks to backing from Arts Council England.
Surely a perennial headache for Will must have been, “How on earth do you represent the music of 27 countries on one 14 track album?” In part, his solution has been to pair up the countries, 13 pairs and one solo, but deciding on the pairings must have been a head-scratcher in itself. Some are to be expected, Germany/Austria, Greece/Cyprus, but right from the opening track, Latvia/Belgium, the question pops into your head, what suggested to Will that this would work? Maybe he could sit you down and tell you in great detail, but a more satisfying approach is to listen to the music and judge for yourself. Incidentally, the track titles listed on the CD package are simply the country names. However, the enclosed booklet gives the tune titles, usually in their native language, lists the musicians on each track, and gives some background to the tunes, in some cases including how Will came across them.
Both halves of the Latvian/Belgian opener are upbeat dance tunes, the track introducing all five musicians of the ensemble. Will learned the Latvian tune from a Latvian box player, so naturally enough it’s Will who takes the lead, the background relying on Jenn Butterworth’s guitar and Patsy Reid’s fiddle. John Parker’s largely bowed double bass, initially quite prominent alongside a repetitive fiddle eventually becomes less so as melodeon, fiddle and Jude Rees’s border pipes cycle through the melody building it up nicely. The Belgian half of the track, a traditional tune, keeps up the pace and also the complexity of the instruments layering up the melody. If this is typical of the album, were going to be in for quite a ride.
The second track gives Irish music the solo spot, Jenn and Will joined by the first of the album’s guests, Irish-American fiddler, Liz Carroll. Liz leads off the set of two jigs and a reel, Jenn backing her with one of her trademark, perfectly paced, fast guitar rhythms. Will takes over on harmonica for some passages and all three instruments power through the set delivering a fast and furious masterclass.
The Poland/Finland pairing is an opportunity for the sixth member of the ensemble, poet Bohdan Piasecki to contribute. He’s Polish, now based in Birmingham, and his verse, spoken over a background of Jenn’s guitar, recounts a journey of emigration/immigration that ends in Birmingham. Not necessarily his own journey, his inspiration during the project included interviews with EU nationals who have made England their home. This piece is quite gentle, wistful at times, tinged with the sadness of what is left behind. Bohdan’s second poem, The List, comes near the end of the album, sandwiched between the Czech Republic and Luxembourg and is rather more spiked. The list of the title is of all the small and not so small adjustments a new arrival to Britain would find themselves making, to fit in, to be accepted. But the final stanza carries a punch, an English voice, gently reassuring, starts, “Do not worry. Everything will be fine”, but changes to “You have taken something from us. We would like it back please, now, please, whatever it is, please, it will make us great again…”. Will emphasises “this was never a pro-Remain or pro-Leave project – it’s about identity, music and the subject of home” but, for Bohdan, listening to the interviewed voices, it’s clearly been impossible to remain a totally impartial observer.
There is just one song on the album, a traditional Croatian piece, sung by guest, Dunja Bahtijarević, one of the musicians Will met on his European travels. She’s joined by the West Midlands-based youth choir, Stream of Sound. The song is from the region where Croatia borders Hungary, and so the pairing of Croatia/Hungary is no surprise. The Germany/Austria pairing also sees Will joined by a guest, German fiddler Gudrun Walther, this being one of five tracks on which Will plays either solo or with just one guest musician. The guest whose presence probably pleased Will the most was world-renowned percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennie. They join up for the Romania/Bulgaria pairing, the track being notable as the Romanian section is not traditional but was written by Will after having listened to many different types of Romanian music. With Will on harmonica and Evelyn’s percussion, it’s a pared-down sound, but one that’s fascinating in its structure, with changing time signatures.
By its very nature, A Day Will Come is a difficult album to summarise, but a very easy album to enjoy, filled with outstanding performances from all the musicians involved. The arrangements devised by Will and the band have, inevitably, been influenced by musical lives spent predominantly in the UK. Also, they’ve not used instruments traditional to specific countries, Scandinavian and Balkan fiddles come to mind. So, maybe, that prompts some of the hints of familiarity one hears in this music, irrespective of its country of origin. But what comes through very clearly are the shared cultural roots, the shared need to express the delights and frustrations of life through music. The need to have music that can be played in any and every village, music that pushes people to get up and dance. Thinking back to our conversations last summer, I recall Will saying people may be surprised that an instrumentalist should undertake such a project, perhaps they’d expect it more from a politically active singer/songwriter. Sure, a collection of songs could highlight a commonality of themes, shared myths and legends, tales of oppression and hardship, tales of love. But then, there would be the barrier of language. Opting for instrumental pieces lets the music do all the talking, and that’s exactly what A Day Will Come is able to do.
Will set himself a herculean task, trying to capture the essence of the traditional music of 27 countries and he can be congratulated on having produced an album that is as entertaining as it is instructive. There’s no doubt, he could do it all again next year, and he’d produce an entirely different, but equally, valid album. In fact, he could probably do it for as many albums as he likes. But they’d all demonstrate the same thing, musically, as in so much else, what we hold in common is so much more than what divides us.