Dougie Poole
The Rainbow Wheel Of Death
Wharf Cat
24 February 2023
Recorded in a spirit of communal joy, Dougie Poole’s ‘The Rainbow Wheel Of Death’ positively struts into view…an album staring down dark moments with good (gallows) humour via the shared strength in music.
The 2020/21 lockdowns and extended periods of isolation, solitude and the inevitable bouts of introspection have, by this point, resulted in a large amount of new music. How could there not be? If you are a singer-songwriter finding yourself with time on your hands and the need to stay in one place, what else are you going to do but work up some new songs? The pitfalls for a folk or country artist making music with an organic elemental flow in its veins was how those restricted circumstances inhibited collaboration. Can you really replicate via a laptop screen what can be cooked up when musicians sit in the same room? Well, a few moments into The Rainbow Wheel Of Death, the new album by Dougie Poole, it is immediately clear that he had no such difficulties. Opening with the title track, this album positively struts into view. The first thing you hear on an album should indeed make the listener want more, and this certainly does; Dougie throws open the windows allowing air to flow around a good-time shuffle vibe seasoned by a sprinkle of early J.J. Cale and the spirit of Bob Wills.
Given this rather uplifting mood, it is interesting to learn that the rainbow wheel of death is actually referencing that coloured buffering circle you get on a computer screen when connections are lost, and signals are weak, leaving you sat there staring and “waiting for something good to load”. The writer explains that there is more to it than mere internet turbulence; he was “waiting to feel something new, go somewhere fresh, for the world to move past its current challenges”. In practical terms, he progressed the album, having done the bulk of the writing in his bedroom, by fully realising the recording in a studio surrounded by musicians and collaborating with producers Katie Von Schleicher and Nate Mendelsohn, better known for their work in the Indie world. The tactic was to play together for a week, just let stuff happen, let the music find its feet naturally. The live sound they captured, as a result, is exactly the treatment required; there is some raw human emotion sitting within these grooves. You hear this on the beautiful closer ‘I Hope My Baby Comes Home Soon’, a song that is a distant cousin to Bobby Charles ‘I Must Be In A Good Place Now’ in feel and motion.
There is introspection to be found for sure, and when he goes there, Dougie pulls every last heartstring he can locate within the performance. ‘Nothing On This Earth Can Make Me Smile’ feels as low as the title suggests, but the hurt is magnified incredibly by the lonesome pedal steel of Jack McLoughlin in the arrangement. ‘I Lived My Whole Life Last Nite’ is looking inwards too, though buried deep in the burden that the narrator’s whole life is now in the rearview mirror; an undeniable message about savouring the here and now. It is a wonder this album does not get too heavy going at times because certain lyrical threads recur, and they do get darker. That theme of time escaping appears again in ‘High School Gym’, a place where the lines of raised seats are quickly filling in the singer’s dream with all the people he knew who have passed. ‘Must Be In Here Somewhere’ returns to the computer tangent as Dougie finds himself searching his internet history, where they say nothing disappears, for a “scrap of memory” from a long-gone relationship. That said, the self-counselling lyrical attentions of the singer must not divert from the fact that this is a full band, easy-on-the-ear, country album often sung emphatically with a mature old-time semi-croon. As the liner notes recall, the album was recorded in a spirit of communal joy, drinking beers and watching movies together at night, and it is this happy spirit that plays out of the speakers, an album staring down dark moments with good (gallows) humour via the shared strength in music.
Pre-Order The Rainbow Wheel Of Death: https://dougiepoole.wharfcatrecords.com/the-rainbow-wheel-of-death