The North East of England has fostered some gnarly folk musicians over the years. Perhaps its geographic isolation and cultural neglect have allowed them to grow in a more defiant and exploratory manner. From the orchestral winding sheet of The Unthanks to the Incredible String Band vs Captain Beefheart fantasias of Richard Dawson (see also Kathryn Tickell, Paul Smith, Steve Malley, Beth Jeans Houghton, Jazzfinger, Nev Clay, etc.), their DNA strains of folk are contaminated by hardcore punk, psychedelia, experimental jazz and outsider pop to form some delightful half mineral/ half animal hybrids. Add to that the hugely popular – though recently discontinued – trad. music honours degree programme at Newcastle University (whose tutors included folk legend Louisa Killen – whose 1975 album Bright Shining Morning is an undiscovered masterpiece) and you’ve got some serious dogs in the fight.
Phil Tyler is one such dog. He and his wife, Cath, have long been spreading the good word about sacred harp singing. Phil is also a member of Powtes – a 6-piece band helmed by Gus Beamish – who have a similarly open-throated approach to trad. themes – where the ecstasy of group improvisation meets the austerity of the drone.
Powtes take their name from the Fenland word for “eel”, and the spectre of the Fens haunts the album. The album’s title track, Destroying A Living, recounts the story of two brothers working undercover of night on land that has been parcelled up and privatised from under them. Once they’re rumbled by the heavy-handed landowner, they resort to murder with the very shovels of their trade. This is all dramatised by the band, who adopt the concept of pathetic fallacy by generating arrangements which echo the emotional dynamics of the action – where stabbing strings ladder into symphonic swirls.
Hirings has a similar formula, with Beamish’s keening alto telling the tale of a worker who’s locked in a cycle of alcoholic hardship. Peter Bourne’s lugubrious trombone adds colour to his doldrums, and Beamish’s single-note guitar solo counterpoints Katy Sillem’s arcing penny whistle to create some exhilaratingly heavy weather.
There’s a gorgeously organic feeling to the whole album, as if they’re all performing live in the same room and responding to the warp and weft of their collective humanity. None more so than on The Wage, as Emily Toth’s diaphanous harp tangles with Beamish’s banjo amid rich vocal harmonies and violin harmonics.
Album closer The Use is a ten-minute ode to the “brackish and sullen and obstinate” East Anglian wetlands that profiteering land barons drained in the 17th century. In flushing the land, they also flushed the culture and decimated an ancient ecosystem that stretches back to Doggerland – the ice age land bridge that connected England to mainland Europe.
Destroying A Living is a sonic monument to the common folk that were dispossessed in this process and to the liminal topographies of Britain that were corseted and plundered thereafter. As such, it is a towering achievement. The ambition of its social anthropology is reminiscent of Richard Dawson’s Glass Trunk and Peasant albums, while the depth and sensuality of the ensemble performances bring to mind the ragged glory of Daisy Rickman. Stick that in your Powtes and smoke it.
Destroying A Living (August 7th, 2026) Self Released