Sally Anne Morgan – Thread
Thrill Jockey – 11 September 2020
For her first solo album, Black Twig Picker Sally Anne Morgan stays true to her musical roots while keeping the arrangements interesting, fresh and often unusual. Although her music does not quite veer into the cosmic unknown like House and Land bandmate Sarah Louise‘s has recently, Morgan has still created an often fascinating set of songs based around new and traditional material.
Things start strongly with ‘Polly on the Shore‘, a gorgeous and melodic take on Shirley Collins‘ version of the classic folk song, with Morgan’s high clear voice blending wonderfully with banjo and Nathan Bowles‘ drums. ‘Garden Song‘ is even better, an instrumental tune in disguise, with Morgan’s nervous guitar coupling with her violin to create a beautifully haunting piece that feels already complete until her ethereal vocal kicks in to celebrate her ‘garden garden garden’. A spooky and solitary song, ‘Garden‘ is ace and leads us into the skittish instrumental jam ‘Sheep Shaped‘ splendidly. Here Morgan and Bowles combine to throw a short austere fiddle and hand drum our way, which sounds as fresh as it does honed from traditional Appalachian mountain music.
Staying in running order, ‘Wintersong‘, a warmer piece than the title suggests, takes us back to the mood of ‘Garden Song‘, with Morgan going solo again and providing guitar and fiddle along with frail pensive lyrics. Much like ‘Garden Song‘, this one would also work beautifully as an instrumental piece, but Morgan’s voice undeniably adds a fragility and emotional quality that blends with the soft violin to simultaneously evoke the brittle nature of winter and the gorgeous ‘blue and green and golden’ colours of the season. The violin is more forthright on ‘Sugar in the Gourd‘, the second traditional song of the set, taken from Clyde Davenport’s version of the (possibly) nineteenth-century tune. The low drones are great here, hovering below the melody and giving the piece more gravitas and texture, as high and low bowed notes both blend together and sometimes jostle and scratch.
Thread is a very tactile album, an autumnal set of songs full of warmth and the fragility and beauty of nature. In that way it does remind me somewhat of Sarah Louise’s Deeper Woods, especially with songs like the fragmented ‘Ellemwood Meditation‘, but more commonly throughout these songs, Morgan plays with the traditional features of Appalachian music and subtly morphs them into fresh and imaginative new shapes. Like the electric guitar underpinning ‘Thread Song‘ and traditional piece ‘Annachie Gordon‘ (a beautiful closer using banjo alongside electric guitar to frame a ballad air best known from Nic Jones’ Noah’s Ark Trap album), these decisions provide a slightly different landscape in which the music can live. The result is a wonderful, deeply thought out, rich and engaging album that manages to sound completely original within the parameters of its musical roots.
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Photo Credit: Katrina Ohstrom
Videography by Katrina Ohstrom