Tapestri – Tell Me World

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Both from Wales and established bi-lingual solo folk/Americana artists, Lowri  Evans and Sarah Zyborska (who records as Sera) first met at a festival in France in 2019. They have since joined forces as Tapestri, and, following an EP release, Tell me World is their debut album, one which looks at the world from a woman’s perspective.

Augmented with instrumentation that includes pedal steel, keyboards, double bass and accordion, it opens with the title track, a number reminiscent of the more uptempo McGarrigles and more musically upbeat than you might expect for a number about domestic abuse and the difficulty of breaking way (“How can I leave him/When he’s all that I know/She looks at me with her daddy’s eyes/You raise your hand, I raise our child”) but eventually, using the metaphor of winter giving way to spring, of finding the strength to go.

Inspired by The Highwomen’s song Redesigning Women, coloured by a gospel-soul feel, the organ-backed Waiting In The Background speaks of gender inequality and of women patiently biding their time; the verses respectively comment on 1950s housewives, 80s career women and their determination as musicians to “live the life I choose, re-writing all the rules/Just give me a stage, gonna bring the house right down” as women “take back the world/That was never, ever given to a girl”.

There have been many songs about unrequited love, but, tempered with pedal steel, Save Your Love is one of the rare times when it’s seen from the perspective of the unavailable other (“You want something more than I can give/Whisper words that I don’t want to hear… I will be your lover/But I won’t be your wife”), telling the other person to save their love for someone who can return it.

The drums kick in for the walking rhythm Crazy, Crazy Times, which is essentially about not trying to excuse events and the actions of others, world leaders in particular, by making light of the situation (“these aren’t crazy crazy times/Stop saying that they are/‘Cuz crazy crazy minds have no control”). Returning to a fingerpicked arrangement, Workshop was inspired by and is about the shed in Zyborska’s garden where, after buying the house, she found books about making dolls-houses and whirligigs that belonged to the elderly former resident, prompting a song about finding peace through creativity “Away from the burden of bringing home the bacon”.

Set to a circling fingerpicked pattern, basically about how we all have good and bad quirks, She’s A Lover is a tribute to Evans’s mother (“She’ll never say she’s sorry/You’ll never hear her say she’s in the wrong/But she’s always been there whenever you need her”) and while she may be “Going grey, getting old” she’s always ready to “have one more ride on the rodeo”. Naturally, there’s also a pandemic-based track, the upbeat anthemic Come Alive, with its organ-backed, steady walking beat drums, about re-emerging into and finding the confidence to live in the new now one step at a time.

Two of the songs are in Welsh, the first being the piano-accompanied, breathily-sung Laurel Canyonesque Y Fflam (Open Flame), the first thing they wrote together, about the all-consuming nature of and being willing to take risks even if that means getting burnt, the other, album closer Atgofion, with piano, pedal steel and crooned backing behind their voices, capturing the bittersweet feeling of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word that means the longing felt when away from home and inspired by  Zyborska’s great aunt who left for America in the late 1940s, never to return to her hometown of Caernarfon or see her family again.

Sandwiched between, with musical echoes of Jackson C Frank and early Paul Simon, is the 60s troubadour folksy punningly titled Genes, inspired by Zyborska’s daughter, born during the making of the album, and how you wear your inherited traits like a pair of personally customised jeans (“These heirlooms are yours/No rags in these riches/Love sewed the stitches and seams…The thread and the fabric may be genetic/But baby it’s the way that you wear it”).

Perhaps best characterised as a Welsh answer to First Aid Kit, their name is also that of a living music archive, a nationwide musical celebration of the people, communities and languages of Wales. The album seems a prime contender for inclusion.

Tapestri is out now and available via Bandcamp

Tapestri Album Tour

March

Fri 24  Cardiff St John’s Church 

Sat 25  Bangor Blue Sky Café 

April

Fri 21  Cardigan Small World Theatre

Sat 22  Dolgellau Tŷ Siamas 

Fri 28  Rhayader The Lost Arc 

Sat 29  Thornton Hough Thornton Hough Village Club 

May

Thu 18  Aberystwyth Bank Vault 

Sat 27  Hay-on-Wye HowTheLightGetsIn Festival

More details here: https://www.tapestrimusic.com/