Chris Wood - Albion: An anthology [Album]

Navigator Records

July 26, 2009, 07:01 PM

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World famous in the land of the folkies but slightly less well-known in the normal pop world, Chris Wood re-introduces himself via ‘Albion: an anthology’, a double album containing much of his best work. Though officially released to give himself and those close to him the chance to listen at a distance, ‘Albion’ is also the perfect introduction to Wood’s music, his journeys and the people he met on his way to become part of history.

With his narrative storytelling, simple melodies and clever arrangements, you might get the impression that Wood is, like many of his peers, not really an artistic miracle and just trying to relive the past and creating new songs based on the old ones. Wood is in fact way more than that, as recognition and praise by the likes of Q, Mojo and the BBC are usually not completely misplaced. But just for the folk rookies to get the picture, imagine Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Scarborough Fair’ with Garfunkel replaced by an accordion and you’re not too far from the truth.

In reality though, if anything, this album shows that Wood’s music is quite diverse. Lyrically he often borrows ideas from personal experiences, on songs like ‘Albion’ and ‘Lusignac’ for instance. But he also shows a love for reciting narrative songs written by others, like the traditional ’The Colour of Amber’ and the epical ’One in a Million’, co-written by storyteller Hugh Lupton, which gave them the ’Best Original Song Award’ at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006.

Wood also shows he’s got more in store than the usual stories of the old on songs, like on ‘Cold Haily Rainy Night’, taken from the ambitious folk project ‘The Imagined Village’, ‘The Land: When the Land is White with Snow’, with leading roles for piano and horns for a change and the Sydney Carter penned gospel ’John Ball’.

Despite the fact that most songs collected for this album are carried by narrative stories about life and the sounds of acoustic guitar, fiddle and accordion, the time listening would be twice as short without the inclusion of instrumentals like ‘I Feel a Smile Coming’, ’Down the Wagon Way’ and ‘Copernicus’, best described as smooth duets between fiddle and accordion.

Good as they are though, it’s also causing the main problem when listening to this double album: the quantity. With twenty-one songs, you could definitely speak of a complete overview of Woods career so far. But for the Average Abraham to listen to several renditions of accordion leading instrumentals of ten minutes or longer might be a little too much to ask.

‘Albion’ draws, all in all, quite a good picture of Chris Wood and with the extensive notes in the booklet about the songs, his collaborations and testimonials from famous fans (Billy Bragg and Jethro Tulls Ian Anderson among others), this album is worth the money, but only if you are into this specific kind of folk music. As a folk musician, Wood is quite diverse, but it’s definitely not a case of crossover music between folk and pop and therefore not folk music rookie proofed.

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