SykesMartin
Unquenching Fire
Dragon Fly Roots
16 September 2022
Miranda Sykes (Show of Hands) and Hannah Martin (Edgelarks) join forces as SykesMartin for their debut album ‘Unquenching Fire’. The debut features assorted contributions from fellow Edgelark, Philip Henry, who also produced the album, a collection of mainly traditional tunes.
The much recorded Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies opens the harmonising set with a simple arrangement of nimble banjo picking, spare bass and a distinct Appalachian air of its origins, setting a high standard from the outset. Equally familiar will be the English ballad Lovely On The Water, here, given a slight jazzy tinge in the manner of early Pentangle and anchored by Sykes’ steady circling bass notes.
Piano, though the credits don’t indicate who’s playing, with Martin on verses and Sykes taking the refrain, is the bedrock for an equally ruminative Dark Eyed Sailor, a rare example of the maritime lover returning to his sweetheart rather than drowning at sea, a number often given a more uptempo pacing.
The last of the better-known numbers – and the longest track – is the broadside ballad Sweet Lemany, largely sung harmonised with plucked strings before a measured circling guitar pattern takes hold, shaded by bowed bass affording a delicate ambience to its lost love lament as the fiddle enters and the sound gathers towards the close.
It’s fair to say the remaining choices are less frequently occurring in such collections; the first, opening with you might call scat folk intro by Sykes, who takes the vocal spotlight, being Blow The Candle Out, sometimes known as The London Apprentice, versions of which date back to the 17th century, set to a tune by Damien Clarke and spinning a familiar tale of a stolen night of pleasure while the parents are asleep, only for the cad to never return to blow the candle out after his apprenticeship ends, though here it’s nine rather than six months, for obvious reasons.
Not traditional as such, Go Your Way was written by Anne Briggs. She recorded it on her 1971 debut album (and again with Bert Jansch in 1993) in response to a lover not paying enough attention, the arrangement harking to the ethereality of the original rather than the recent earthier reading by Plant and Krauss.
The final five numbers are all traditional, the last lap beginning with the minimalist title track, their voices initially accompanied by just sparse plucked banjo before the instrumentation swells. I confess the lost love lament is so obscure I could only find one other recording, from Rita Well’s 1968 psych-folk album Sings Ballads and Folksongs and absolutely nothing about its origins. Full marks to the duo for bringing it back into the light with Martin adding some new lyrics.
Sung predominantly by Sykes, the comparatively rousing Standing Stones with Martin on fiddle stems from the Orkneys, a tale of murder by a jealous rival, and was collected by Peter Kennedy. Again sung by Sykes, the lightness of her voice contrasting with her dark, resonant bowed bass, Flanders, or more accurately Will Ye Go To Flanders, is a Scottish number about the horrors and futility of war and dates from the Duke of Marlborough’s 1706/7 campaign in Flanders in during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Again brushed with jazz tints to the bass and a late 60s British folk revival sensibility, the penultimate track is the mellifluously sung (The) Forsaken Maiden, a display song likely dating back to the 16th century and another abandoned lover’s lament, her with the insinuation of committing suicide to serve him right.
It ends, then, with them singing unaccompanied on Little Margaret, a variation of Lady Margaret and Sweet William, in which a ghost spies the newlywed William and his bride and visits him as a young maiden that night, luring him away to kiss her cold, cold lips and fall asleep in her arms.
It’s a rare delight to find an album that doesn’t rely exclusively on reworking the usual traditional chestnuts, but then SykesMartin are a rare delight indeed.
Order Unquenching Fire: https://sykesmartin.bigcartel.com/
Upcoming Dates
23/9/22 TICKETS RUNNING LOW Wadsworth Community Centre, Hebden Bridge
24/9/22 The Watson Institute, Castle Carrock, Cumbria
25/9/22 West Kirby Arts Centre, Wirral
26/9/22 Nettlebed Folk Club
27/9/22 Dartford Folk Club
28/9/22 St Mary’s Hall, Whitstable
29/9/22 Cecil Sharp House
30/9/22 Vestry Hall, Cranbrook
1/10/22 SOLD OUT JPK Centre, Eastbourne
All tickets and info from: https://edgelarks.co.uk/sykesmartin