Lucy Ward’s last album, Pretty Warnings, was released in 2018. David Pratt called it a gorgeous, atmospheric offering of the highest calibre. Now, for the first time in 5 years, Lucy returns to the studio for a new UK-Icelandic-Canadian collaboration – Ward Knutur Townes.
The new project came about via Global Music Match – a ground-breaking project which saw 60 artists from 16 countries making music virtually with counterparts. Lucy was teamed with Iceland’s mesmerising modern-day troubadour Svavar Knútur and Canada’s Adyn Townes, purveyor of pin-sharp, heartfelt songs. Created during COVID, their debut album, Unanswered, was produced by Steve MacLachlan, who also plays drums on the release, which will be released on October 6, 2023. We have the pleasure of sharing the video for the impressive title track below
Talking about the album, Lucy Ward tells us:
“Well, this record has sure been a labour of love! We were writing across oceans and time zones through the pandemic and ended up taking a big leap of faith and meeting each other in person for the first time in a studio on an Icelandic mountaintop with just two weeks to bring those songs and our record to fruition.
“What we think we have made though is a record greater than the sum of its parts, a record that isn’t signature to anyone of us, but a true blend of our styles and influences. We are so excited to finally be releasing Unanswered and taking the album on tour across the UK this autumn. I think as songwriters, we are all very interested in the human condition, really getting to the heart of a story, and it was that common ground that attracted us to working with each other initially. And as performers, between us, we’ve spent decades ploughing our own furrows as solo artists, so this opportunity to collaborate and share the stages has made for a lot of fun, and the end result is a record we are all really proud of.”
The album’s title track was a last-minute contender for the shortlist. Says Lucy: “It was written in the studio, a surprise extra – inspired by a tale told to Adyn and Svavar as they travelled across Iceland together. It’s the true story of an old telephone, clearly disconnected for many years, that still sometimes rings…though no-one ever dares to answer the ghostly caller. In our song, we have married English and Icelandic to tell the tale. The Icelandic choruses tell 3 separate stories of who could be calling, while the English verses tell the tale of plucking up the courage to finally answer the phone.”
Svavar explains: “Basically, the choruses are three miniature ghost stories, told in four lines of verse – the first is the tale of a young boy who longs to hear his mother’s voice on the phone, but he gets lost in a storm and dies from exposure before he reaches home.
“The second tells of a young man who longs to hear the voice of his love, but is lost at sea in a storm and the third tells of the bitter shame of a man who has let down his love. Realising his mistake his only wish is to hear her angelic pure voice again, but that is never to be.”
Apparently, the telephone is available for the public to visit (in a café), but will anyone be brave enough to pick it up if it rings!
In a swirling, spectral setting, Lucy delivers a yearning lead vocal with Svavar interweaving the Icelandic choruses, making for a hypnotic, suspenseful, otherworldly number.
The Trio: Ward Knutur Townes
Lucy Ward is now a mum of three young boys and has four successful solo studio albums behind her. She won the Best Newcomer gong at the 2012 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She was one of the youngest-ever nominees for Folk Singer of the Year at the 2014 Awards, while her Single Flame album was one of our Featured Albums of the Month and became one of MOJO’s top albums of 2013.
Svavar Knútur is a singular songwriter from northern Iceland with a sublime voice and sharp observation. His intimate, quirky, mood-swing songs may sometimes be spun from his country’s dark history and rugged ‘fire and ice’ landscape, but they also deliver hope and humour and cleverly sum up the human condition.
Completing the trio – Across the Atlantic, alt-indie artist Adyn Townes is a five-time International Songwriting Competition finalist and winner of the 2020 Music New Brunswick SOCAN Song of the Year Award for House on the Ocean.
Aside from their three exceptional voices, Townes plays guitars, Ward plays sansula and Knútur plays guitars, keys and synths. Alongside the Steve MacLachlan mentioned above, guests Sarah Matthews on violin and viola and Evan McCosham on bass complete the line-up.
Having painstakingly crafted the album over two years courtesy of Zoom, the trio finally met in Iceland in April to record the 11-track album. Recorded at Leifshús Art Farm on a mountainside overlooking a fjord, Unanswered is music of the unexpected – bold, moving, eloquent and eclectic, turning on a sixpence from folk to rock, pop to blues. The narrative song themes delve into love, mystery, folklore, nature and social injustice in eleven beautiful vignettes.
Sometimes stark and spectral, other times upbeat and punchy Unanswered is not just a breath of fresh air – it’s a complete gust of creativity from an alliance that would probably never have come to be had it not been for a global pandemic. Their meeting proved a master stroke of serendipity.
Unanswered is released on Betty Beetroot Records on October 6, and Ward KnúturTownes will showcase it on an 18-date UK tour starting in Lucy’s home town of Derby on October 13 – a hybrid gig that is also being screened by Live To Your Living Room. https://livetoyourlivingroom.com/events/.
Find out more here: https://wardknuturtownes.com/