Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi – They’re Calling Me Home
Nonesuch – Out Now
A lot of times, how you look at the world depends on where you are, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi are both expatriates who have spent the lockdown living in their adopted home of Ireland. Being unable to travel affected them, resulting in They’re Calling Me Home, an album that reflects on what happens when a choice is no longer a choice. In an interview with NPR, Giddens made that clear, “When you move to somewhere else through choice, you look for the similarities in the new culture and your culture, and that’s how you build points of connection. When you can no longer go back home, even to visit, you start feeling the differences.”
Besides grappling with those differences along with their three children, they struggled with the notion of what home really is. Their answers go to the heart of They’re Calling Me Home. Home is a place that provides comfort, but there is also the sense of death calling one home as well, a point made abundantly clear by the effects of Covid 19. What makes this collection so unique is Giddens and Turrisi have related these themes to music from a variety of centuries and traditions.
With the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the goal was to understand Roots Music, yet there is so much more to Giddens. At the Oberlin Conservatory for Music in Ohio, Giddens studied opera, so Monteverdi’s “Si Dolce è’l Tormento” receives a unique treatment with Turrisi playing a cello banjo. The sparse backing brings out the best in both musicians. While there may be just a handful of instruments on the album, not a note feels out of place.
A traditional song like “I Shall Not Be Moved” has a history that goes back hundreds of years, yet the banjo and drum at the heart of the song sound fresh and up to date. Organ and whistle only add to the feel of the piece, with Giddens singing the song as if she’s trying to give the audience a chance to join in with the way she emboldens certain phrases.
Giddens reading of “Oh Death” is a million miles away from the way she sings Monteverdi, instead of something formal, the song becomes sensual and sorrowful, built on a rhythmic backing that gives the piece a feel from the 1800s while still sounding remarkably contemporary, no easy trick. Again and again, Giddens illustrates a vocal maturity that few can match.
The instrumental, “Niwei Goes To Town” features incredible guitar work from Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu. Redoing Pentangle’s “When I Was in My Prime,” the pace is slowed with Turrisi playing cello banjo and Giddens on viola. “Waterbound” dates back to the 1920s yet establishes the distance, both physical and psychological as Giddens sings, “Waterbound and I can’t get home, down to North Carolina.”
Knowing that “Amazing Grace” is so well known, Giddens decides that rather than sing the song it makes more sense to totally reinvent it using frame drums and the uilleann pipes of Emer Mayock serving the piece while she adds harmony. It’s an audacious reworking that again illustrates her ability to find new ways to contextualize the traditional.
Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi’s new album is unlike anything else you will experience this year. They’re Calling Me Home is a metaphor for our times. We all need to find our way home. Let this album serve as your guide.
Photo Credit: karen Cox