Contemporary poetry never gets enough exposure, so this is a gently inspirational and refreshingly different release incorporating 10 poets who were invited in February 2020, just before lockdown, to Abbey Road studios record one of their own pieces - MA.Moyo, Raymond Antrobus, Lemn Sissay, Liz Berry, Anthony Anaxagorou, Adam Horovitz, Cia Mangat, Imtiaz Dharker, Kim Moore and Kayo Chingony. Overseeing this, Cerys Matthews says: “We are living in extraordinary times, I wanted to respond but had the urge to offer more than one voice, more than one perspective. Not an echo chamber." With the additional help of field recordists, musicians and especially Joe Acheson (Hidden Orchestra) this is what's known as sound journey for these poems with the theme of genesis, birth, heritage, and a journey about to begin. Three of the standouts include MA Moyo’s Flame Lily, on feminine power with drums and synths, a gentle piano to close Raymond Antrobus’s elegiac memories of his father in , a ghostly clarinet accompanying Imtiaz Dharker’s nocturnal cameo The Trick, Lemn Sissay's crackling fireside gentle synth-glittered star-gazing Adventure Flight, and Adam Horovitz's A House Built From Cloth with more clarinet double bass, dulcimer, and sounds of nature. Out on Decca.
Feel free to also check out our favourite albums of 2020 here:
Fiona Apple to Lianne La Havas to Yves Tumor: favourite albums of 2020 – Part 1
Agnes Obel to Bob Dylan, Phoebe Bridgers to Sault: favourite albums of 2020 – Part 2
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