Josienne Clarke is great, Ben Walker is great and I hope my neighbours don't mind that my housemates and I were playing their music til 4am last night with the windows open. This is a review for the Hackney Citizen of the duo's latest release, but Josienne's self-penned 2010 album One Light Is Gone is also worth checking out - first song 'The Birds' is as beautiful and haunting a song as you are likely to hear this Autumn - and the duo's takes on traditional songs on second album The Seas Are Deep is also a treasure chest. I will probably need to write more about this music soon.
An edited version of this review is published in September's Hackney Citizen, but here it is in full.
When you hear Josienne Clarke sing, you aren’t likely to forget it in a hurry. She’s got a voice like a struck bell, clear and melancholic, and writes songs in the same troubled language, to which Ben Walker’s guitars and arrangements provide a skillful foil. The duo have worked on two previous albums, one of originals and one of traditional folksongs, both drawing on British songwriting and balladry, but the Homemade Heartache EP takes its cues from the other side of the Atlantic, from artists like Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and the Old Crow Medicine Show. It’s a natural progression from Clarke’s previous work in British folksong, with which country shares a wounded, weary soul.
“As a listener my favourite songs are often the ones about lost love and break-ups,” Clarke says, “and country is a very good genre for that! As a songwriter I also seem to favour those themes and try, where possible, to make my songs as honest and meaningful as I can.” The Homemade Heartache EP, as you may expect, mainly concerns itself with aching hearts, but is presented with a wistful beauty, as Clarke’s voice winds itself around guitars, mandolins and accordian.
‘Just Travelling,’ the first song, kicks things off with a spirited interplay of guitar and mandolin, with Clarke in a defiant mood, describing hardship as “a distance that gets shorter as you go along,” whilst the chorus, ambiguous as all good folk lyrics are, seem both to encourage and lament a friend who never stays put. As the song heads home, Basia Bartz’s violin locks in for satisfyingly climatic hoe-down.
‘Forever and more’ is a showcase for Clarke and Walker’s intertwining guitars, as the song breezes in on fingerpicking that counterpoints the languid violin and vocal lines. Walker is a consummate guitarist, and the range of techniques he deploys across a 2:50 song are more varied than some display over a whole album. That said, the guitars are never showy, and could even be described as understated, with even the instrumental break showing a balanced restraint.
The title track is perhaps the most clearly indebted to slow-burning country, with swooning washes of slide guitar, a deep, sturdy bassline, a twangy electric and a lyrical violin setting the scene for Clarke’s heartfelt plea to a lover not to be scared away by her melancholy. Clarke harmonises with herself here, as she does elsewhere on the EP, to great effect, putting the finishing touch on a classic ballad.
“I’ve never thought of crying as something strange / It helps with understanding that every tear means change.” The lyrics to ‘Every Tear Means Change’ could sum up Clarke’s whole songwriting style. In time-honoured fashion, she explores life’s sadnesses to find some kind of truth. With such a clear guiding principle, she could probably turn her hand to just about any style of music and come out with some pretty good results. But the care and thought that has gone into this EP shows a real affection and appreciation for country music, as well as a true understanding of its spirit and power. The EP is available on Bandcamp and from shows, and I would recommend that you go have a listen.
