A novel album in many ways, full of charm, narrative and a fresh perspective, this eighth album by the Cambridge singer-songwriter and scholar explores the folk interest of the writer with readings and traditional songs that are just as describes the stories - “bizarre, grotesque and beautiful”. Paulusma, who is hardly doing this on a whim as she has just completed a PhD on the subject, was inspired by how Carter ran a folk club with her musicologist husband Paul in the 1960s and was deeply influenced by folk tradition, and, with guests Kirsty Logan and Kathryn Williams, intersperses short readings between each song, some unaccompanied, others with a delightful sprinkling of of acoustic instruments. They are smartly paired up, echoing each other with tales of melancholy, love, death and violence, with particular regularity of stabbings and crimes of passion. The deadly and the beautiful are close bedfellows, the most notable being The Bloody Chamber, as well as The Erl-King. Of the songs, among highlights are beautiful renditions of Reynardine, Barbary Allen, The Maid & The Palmer, and the tale classic cross-dressing character Jack Munro illuminating links between these songs and characters and narratives, in Carter’s work. Who knows, perhaps this could spark a trend, and there there could be more carefully curated co-exhibition of novelist/song albums like this, each book and song enhancing the other. Out on Wild Sound Recordings.
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