Music / folk
Review: Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker, The Lantern
Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker’s 2018 album, Seedlings All, didn’t so much redefine them as further define them as musical polymaths. They deftly side-step (sometimes they blatantly steamroller) attempts at fixing them to a genre, but alt-folk is the best you’re going to get, unless ‘bloody good music’ suffices as a label.
Ask them for a category and they’ll give you ‘corduroy punk’ or ‘uneasy listening,’ with neither a hint of irony or apology. Their current material ought to irk the most woolly of folkies, but that’s no bad thing. After all, isn’t winding people up quite good fun?
Friday night is party night, obvs, and so we gather at The Lantern. A Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker party would probably happen in the kitchen or on the stairs. Neither is a prime candidate for highly-aerobic move-busting to MC Hammer in the middle of the living room.
is needed now More than ever
“Start with something upbeat, they said. We ignored that.” Josienne Clarke’s wry opening salvo after Ghost Light is no surprise to experienced followers. Not only the vocalist, she is the sardonic voice of the duo. Ben Walker is conspicuous by his cross-legged, meditative stillness, letting fingers on frets and his nimble picking do his eloquent talking.
Josienne’s deadpan between-song drollery is candidly contextualised before set closer, Bathed In Light. She talks of coping with stage fright – forging on through it in the face of having “no other lucrative career.” It’s this endearing sense of ordinariness, being just as fallible as the listener, coupled with the extraordinary skills of personal insight, poetry and musical prowess that makes this music irresistible.
The use of a full touring band (bass/double bass, drums and keyboard) provides an abundant canopy, in which Josienne’s majestic voice can luxuriate. Weave in lush additional vocals from Samantha Whates, Josienne’s bandmate in side project Pica Pica, on tracks like Bells Ring or Nine Times Along, and it feels extra-indulgent, like troughing a series of ‘sod the calories’ dishes, followed by a couple of obligatory wafer-thin mints.
Even though Sad Day converts a Bill Withers/Motown theme into the realms of Bill Wuthers and Mopetown, and Chicago recounts the ultimate failure of one gig when the audience was comprised of precisely nobody, the beauty of life’s uncertainty underpins everything. They won the Isambard Folk Prize in this very room in 2012. They’ve since won a BBC Folk Award. Tonight, however, we are the thankful beneficiaries.
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