(2017) Karine Polwart with Pippa Murphy - A Pocket of Wind Resistance [FLAC,Tracks] {100.XY}

(2017) Karine Polwart with Pippa Murphy - A Pocket of Wind Resistance

Review:
Wind Resistance – Karine Polwart‘s musical meditation on maternity, Midlothian, and migration – has been lavished with praise ever since it debuted at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2016. A Pocket of Wind Resistance manages to capture the essence of the stage production, whilst still tying together as a coherent record in its own right.
For the uninitiated, there are two or three concurrent narratives going on across the album’s fourteen tracks. The story of an annual geese migration to the bogs around Fala Flow; that of Will and Roberta Sime and their unborn child; and also that of Karine herself, her own relationship to the story, and to Will and Roberta’s daughter Molly. Karine has always been a narrative songwriter, but here she’s flexing her muscles even further.

Molly Sime’s Welcome to Salter’s Road, which first appeared on her SAY-nominated album Traces as Salters Road, gives an already beautiful song more room to breathe, and placing it fully in the context of the story gives it a cinematic quality.

Huge credit must be given to Pippa Murphy, the sound designer with whom Karine worked on the show. With brief ambient flourishes, these comparatively pared-back songs are set perfectly in context – the rhythm of wind on Tyrannic Man’s Dominion, a re-interpretation of Now Westlin Winds; the constant chatter of bird song, and a slight ghostliness added to some of Karine’s spoken word moments, particularly A Place To Rest And Mend. Tiny shifts in context that help push the story forward.

Far be it from us to tell you how to listen to music, but A Pocket of Wind Resistance deserves to be sat through start to finish – at least for the first couple of times. Not that the songs don’t work on their own, because they absolutely do, but the overall bleed from one to the next, the movement of the narrative, is what makes this such a brilliant piece of work.

Tracklist:
01 - All On a Summer's Evening.flac
02 - The Moor Speaks.flac
03 - Lark in the Clear Air.flac
04 - Labouring and Resting.flac
05 - Tyrannic Man's Dominion.flac
06 - Place to Rest and Mend.flac
07 - A Benediction.flac
08 - Small Consolation.flac
09 - White Old Woman of the Night.flac
10 - Sphagnum Mass for a Dead Queen.flac
11 - Lullaby for a Lost Mother.flac
12 - Remember the Geese.flac
13 - Molly Sime's Welcome to Salter's Road.flac
14 - We Are All Bog Born.flac


Summary:
Country: Scotland
Genre: Indie-Folk


Media Report:
Source                           : CD
Format                           : FLAC
Format/Info                      : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode                    : Variable
Bit rate                         : ~421-802 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth                        : 16 bits