The Rheingans Sisters – Receiver
bendigedig – 23 October 2020
Before we get on to the music, it’s worth dwelling for a while on the format. Specifically the humble compact disc. Recent years have seen an upsurge in vinyl sales, perhaps as a result of nostalgia, perhaps because the act of putting on a record has passed over time from second nature to a kind of ritualised behaviour. Vinyl appeals to our sense of physicality. It acts as a counterpoint to digital media: the two can coexist because they are so different from each other. CDs on the other hand have suffered something of an identity crisis. Playing a CD isn’t seen as an event. It is considered a standoffish format, not something you can engage with in the way you engage with a record or even a tape. And yet it lacks the practicality and instant shareability of streamed music or digital files.
But, perhaps against the odds, CDs are holding their own. In a way they are the perfect media for listeners who value the tangibility of an album but maybe don’t have the space for vinyl. The sound quality is generally very good. And perhaps most importantly the CD offers ample opportunity for music to interact with other art forms. It is the perfect size to house the written word. A well-presented CD can be a piece of visual art, or it can carry an entire gallery’s-worth of images. And of all the labels going above and beyond mere packaging into the realm of high art, bendigedig is surely the most impressive. The label is five years old and has released five albums, which gives you some idea of their attention to detail, and the sheer amount of time they are willing to lavish on their musicians. As a result, their releases are truly stunning, and truly innovative.
Receiver is The Rheingans Sisters’ fourth album as a duo, and their first for bendigedig. It comes nestled in the front endpaper of a book that runs to nearly fifty pages and contains an original piece of writing by Rowan Rheingans and a series of artworks – ‘solargraphs’ – by Pierre-Olivier Boulant. These long-exposure photographs create vivid abstractions, arcs that resemble rainbows or aurorae. It is more than just something to look at while you listen to the tunes. As Rowan explains in her process notes, Boulant’s artwork embodies collaboration between artist and the world from which he draws his inspiration. The sisters see their songs as similar collaborations – what they create is inseparable from what they receive. It is an admirably utopian way of thinking.
Of course, the scale and ambition of Receiver as a work of art means that the songs really have to work hard. All the visual elements would count for nothing if the music wasn’t something special. Thankfully, where the Rheingans Sisters are concerned, you know it is going to be very special. Their previous release, Bright Field (2018) was one of the most innovative folk albums of the last decade, and on Receiver they up their game even further. The songwriting is shared between Anna and Rowan, and there is a smattering of traditional songs too. Opening track The Yellow Of The Flowers is Rowan’s composition: it represents an awakening and explores the closeness of human and non-human life. The juxtapositions seem gentle but are loaded with meaning. The song is lit by colour in a way that is almost painterly. It is an impressionist landscape, a view from a window. And musically too it is full of surprise: the strings and keys backlit by a minimal synth.
Östbjörka is a Swedish dance tune that celebrates light and the changing of the seasons (in which respect it acts as something of a companion piece to the first song). It dips and swoons, showcasing the sisters’ talents as violinists and arrangers. But both are adept with a wide variety of instruments: Anna’s song Salt Of The Earth sees her take up the five-string banjo while Rowan’s electric guitar makes a cameo appearance. It also gives a good idea of just how wide-ranging the pair’s songwriting is, thematically and geographically as well as musically. Salt Of The Earth explores northern Algerian ritual and takes inspiration from the Toulouse music scene.
Anna’s instrumental One More Banjo is more homespun, and sees the duo trading nimble and melodic banjo licks, while another of Anna’s tracks, Insomnia, is much more structured and layered, a wired and wordless vignette in the form of a traditional bourrée that shows just how experimental it is possible to be while remaining within the vernacular of folk music. She tackles the same theme but from a much more melancholic angle in Lament For Lost Sleep, the high, lonesome sound of the flabuta (a three-holed flute) held in a constant state of tension by Rowan’s droning viola. The last in a run of five instrumentals composed by Anna, Moustiques Dans Les Mûres is another compelling and evocative piece, and introduces the subtle saxophone of Rachel Cohen.
On the face of it, The Bones Of The World is an impish rondeau, a deceptively simple little dance written by Leicestershire fiddler John-Francis Goodacre. But even here the sisters can’t resist the urge to experiment, and the tune is haunted by the hushed vocals of an old Occitan sheep-counting song. The result is delightful and slightly strange. It is at around this point in the album that you really start to appreciate the originality of thought and the depth of research that went into this music. On Urjen we hear an excerpt from 1935, a traditional Norwegian Hardanger fiddle which is then taken up by Anna and Rowan on violin and viola respectively. But this is no mere mimicry: Anna spent three years working out the tuning, and the hard work has paid off with astonishing success, capturing the unique sound of Norway’s fjordland folk music. There is something wonderfully disconcerting about the Hardanger fiddle, and it comes as no surprise to learn that it is associated with the devil in folklore.
Anna’s deep love of the more esoteric offshoots of European folk and dance music is further explored in Orogen, which combines communal French dance tunes with a Norwegian halling (a dance performed by an individual). That the two apparently disparate geographical elements mix so richly is testament both to the adaptability of traditional music and to the knowledge (and innate ability) of the duo.
Where the first half of the album focused on Anna’s tunes, Rowan’s songs dominate the home stretch. After The Bell Rang is a powerful warning against hubris, delicately played on banjo and Anna’s tambourin à cordes. From Up Here is a tune that has grown over time, a truly organic thing, composed by Rowan but inspired by the people and places that have meant something to both sisters over the years. It makes use of historical details in a refreshingly literal way: Anna plays a Hammond organ in direct reference to the collector of organs who lived in the same artists’ community as her in Toulouse. It is little touches like this that give Receiver its authenticity.
Throughout the album, songs feed back into the visual elements of the CD packaging. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Photograph. The importance of visual imagery in the telling and retelling of history (here in the context of the Bloody Sunday massacre) is explored in a way that reflects the striking visual impact made by the album’s artwork. This constant tying-up of creative threads is a balancing act that Receiver pulls off spectacularly.
The final waltz that tops off the album is delicate and endearingly humble, a paean to the joys of simplicity. The Rheingans Sisters have earned the right to embrace that simplicity after all the brilliant complexity and sparkling diversity on show. In Receiver they have created a masterpiece of modern folk music as well as a captivating physical artefact.
Receiver is out today, 23rd October, order it here: https://smarturl.it/RheinganssisReceiver
https://rheinganssisters.co.uk/
Hudson Records Listening Club
Hudson Records Listening Club – The Rheingans Sisters – Receiver
Sunday 25th October – 10.30am
Join Rowan and Anna this coming Sunday (25 Oct at 10:30am) as they listen through and discuss their new album, they will be online to chat about the album throughout the listening club so say hello in the comments area. You can watch the live stream on Hudson Records Youtube channel, subscribe, like and follow to receive notifications.
Streaming Link: https://www.youtube.com/hudsonrecords