Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Is It The Sea?

by Andrew Dolton

New life to brilliant standards

"In total, it’s another wonderful record to add to an already extensive and astonishing catalogue of work."

Along the well trodden road of musical stardom there are many, many stories of the ‘stars’ being helped to their lofty positions based heavily on the work of others. These individuals indulge in a variety of tasks from songwriting to production but outside of the dedicated followers of fashion remain mere footnotes on the liner notes.

That isn’t wholeheartedly the case here but the artist tag does read merely as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy where in truth a more accurate and true portrayal would be Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy with Harem Scarem and Alex Neilson. Without their inclusion this would be a very different record.

For those of you thinking that it was a mere couple of months ago that Will Oldham came forth with his last ‘masterpiece’ ‘Lie Down In The Light’ this is not a whole new collection of songs but a live album captured by those nice people at the BBC from his tour of Scotland and Ireland from the spring of 2006. The introduction of Harem Scarem on close harmonies, fiddle, flute, banjo and accordion and Alex Neilson on drums and percussion brings a new take on past classics.

Tracks like ‘Master & Everyone’, ‘Wolf Among Wolves’ and ‘Minor Place’ on record are hushed pieces of music, styled as intimate episodes of Oldham’s canon. Here they become something much different. They are now songs packed with emotion and gusto with a vocal performance that moves from a barely audible whisper to a full, rich and ultimately loud voice. The additional instrumentation makes the songs almost one off events making them far less a remix or a rehash of what has come before but almost a new interpretation and the album is all the more listenable for the experience.

Not that there was ever a governance of time constraints on his previous works but here some of the tracks take on a new size. ‘Cursed Sleep’, ‘Molly Bawn’ and ‘My Home is The Sea’ all clock in around eight minutes. There is more of a sensation of a very professional but still off the cuff traditional singalong down the pub to the events as songs re-evolve rather than just persist. Again they are of the moment rather than pre-ordained.

In total it’s another wonderful record to add to an already extensive and astonishing catalogue of work. As much as it will reaffirm many people’s love of a great artist it will also have many scrambling to obtain the back catalogue of his co-conspirators.

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