The Owl Service – Rise Up Rise Up
Hobby-Horse Recordings (HHTE-001) – 6 June 2021
The Judge : “Are you bent on reviving forgotten horrors?”
The Doctor: “How do we know, sir, what is dead?”
This exchange from The Blood on Satan’s Claw (for which The Owl Service covered a section of the soundtrack in 2009) came to mind when I heard that the group had recorded a new EP. And there we were, thinking The Owl Service was six feet under.
Their last album, 2016’s His Pride. No Spear. No Friend. (reviewed here) was one of my favourite releases of that year. But then the group’s mastermind, Steven Collins, sadly announced that The Owl Service would cease to exist on the band’s 10th anniversary on 6 June 2016.
So – after five years in suspended animation – the appropriately-named Rise Up Rise Up is doubly welcome, as is the promise of a new full album (to come). Its six quite divergent tracks share the band’s mercurial sensibility and leave the listener guessing which of these signal the direction the band will take on the album-to-come (if any).
Like the previous releases, it is largely Steven’s work. He plays all the instruments, arranged, produced and recorded the tracks, but with welcome vocal contributions from Owl Service veterans Diana Collier and Laura Hulse.
It starts with a rather obscure song, Asforteri 25, by the Canterbury-based prog-rock group, Caravan. It’s a dreamy mantra-like reinterpretation that twists the track to sound more like a forgotten folk horror film theme. Spooky, strange and sultry, welcome back The Owl Service…
Everyone from Mike Oldfield to All About Eve via Art Garfunkle have recorded interpretations of She Moves Through The Fair, but you’ve probably never heard it like this… unless you were listening intently while watching the 1978 British sci-fi horror film Prey, directed by Norman J Warren. The Owl Service expands the one-minute snippet (named Party Music On Record Player on the soundtrack album) to a full four-minute fuzzed and funked-up version of the traditional Irish song.
Next up is an ominous version of another well-known traditional ballad, Dives & Lazarus. Stripped-back and Bible-black, it is a chilling retelling of the gospel parable. You are less likely to dance along to this one, it’s more likely to keep you wakeful in the dead of the night. Inspired by interpretations from Andrew King and The Young Tradition, this is not for the faint-hearted.
Mercifully, Interlude 13 leaps in after Lazarus fades with a return to the classic early Owl Service sound. Described as a reconstruction of the ‘Sandman’s Song’ by Anne Briggs, it’s inspired by The Memory Band use of samples and live instrumentation; a finger-picked acoustic guitar loop propels the track which is by turns familiar and strange.
Then another curveball with what sounds like a field recording of Crazy Man Michael (the Thompson/Swarbrick Fairport classic), stripped back to the bones with Laura Hulse on vocals and Steven on organ. It takes a familiar song that’s been somehow sweetened over the years by repetition and interpretation and takes it back to its menacing roots.
Closing the EP is To The Anti-Gallican, the words from an 18th century Northumbrian seafaring traditional song but set to the Manfred Mann tune Up The Junction, taken from the soundtrack of the 1968 film of the same name. And it works amazingly well, juxtaposing the tranquil 60s ballad with the words from a very different kind of ballad from a century before as if Kaleidoscope had recorded a Fotheringay track.
Now we know that The Owl Service definitely aren’t deceased. Rise Up Rise Up is a treasure trove. There are more ideas and influences packed into these six tracks than many artists manage in a whole album.
Five years in the wilderness seems to have re-energised Steven Collins and his chosen collaborators, with further releases: The Devil’s Children, two tracks covering the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Paddy Kingsland’s score for the classic children’s sci-fi series, The Changes (both highly recommended). And Magic Stories They Have Brought to Me (A Beginner’s Guide to The Owl Service), which – as the title suggests – is the perfect introduction to the back catalogue of this sadly overlooked, but innovative and brilliant band. Dive in and dig deep, there’s a body of amazing work to uncover that deserves to rise anew.
Order it here: https://theowlservice.bandcamp.com/