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REVIEWS
STARGAZING review 09
ABBIE LATHE & THE LOVELIES – Stargazing (Curlew Records CD001)
I’ve been enraptured by the sounds of tight, close harmonies since I first saw Steeleye Span many years ago and there are plenty featured on this album. Abbie Lathe the engaging front-person of The Lovelies along with the other members of the group Claudia Gibson (piano), Colin Fletcher (acoustic bass guitar) and Jane Griffiths (violin/viola) utilise a colourful and interesting choice of songs that is outstandingly refreshing to these jaded old ‘folk’ ears of mine. The elements of jazz make for a satisfying change as the vocal structures sumptuously envelope the listener in a warm, soft blanket of audio pleasure. As well as employing the songs of established artists including Kate Bush’s “Army Dreamers” (which I a haven’t heard since the sadly de parted Viva Smith’s version a few years ago) Anne Lister’s “The Moth” and the traditional “Mingulay Boat Song” it is the band’s own self-penned material that proves the real foundation. All four musicians contribute and should be justifiably proud of their song-writing and arranging skills. If you’re looking for something a little different to broaden your conceptions of what ‘folk’ music is all about then you could do worse than use this album as a starting point. www.myspace.com/abbielatheandthelovelies
PETE FYFE
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Singing in Shropshire
I've just started a new voice training venture with Anna Gillions and our first night was Sep 22nd.
It was a wonderful evening with 20 budding singers from around shropshire. The usual response when I ask people how they are feeling at the beginning of the session is 'quite scared', and this, indeed, was the case. After a series of carefully prepared enjoyable excercises (physical and vocal), everyone felt so much better and were already wondering what there was to be afraid of. Then we immersed into simple harmony songs and, as always at these events, the sound was fantastic. People were amazed that they were part of something that sounded so good.
There's a simple joy in combining voices (good and not so good, it really doesn't matter) that lifts the spirits immeasurably and takes away self-consciosness and fear of incompetence.
There wasn't a person in the room who didn't feel uplifted by the experience; and many of them had believed they weren't good singers at the beginning of the evening.
'Sing from the heart' I say and all will be well.
Abbie Lathe
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Low summer...netrhythms 2006
Currently still touring with Maddy Prior & The Girls, Abbie's nevertheless a major imaginative talent in her own right, as her previous solo album Spring (2003) demonstrated. Its followup, Low Summer, though two whole summers in coming, does however prove worth the wait; it's a further collection of intriguing original songs by Abbie herself (with the exception of Swallows, penned by Jon Fletcher), carrying the torch for poetic, strongly individual and highly aware contemporary songwriting. Once again Abbie's lyrics embody an acute understanding of observation and perception and how they impact on reality, all the while comprehending that it's a two-way process. Standout cuts this time round - notably the ostensibly more unusual, Pooka-esque (sorry, it's the only really relevant reference point I feel) ones like Broken and Therapy - display every bit as much imagination and originality as their counterparts on Spring. Elsewhere, Lucky reminded me of Laurie Anderson with its cool vocalising and eerie programmed beats, and the hip-jazz idiom proves apt for the philosophy of Secret Communication, while Let It Fall and the delicately pensive piano-backed Better Days have a dreamy Kate Bush ambience and Treachery is an inventively, lusciously scored piece loosely following the style of a traditional ballad (though considerably more economical in scope). There's still the very occasional, slightly frustrating, nagging sense that in Abbie's quest for economy of poetic expression an idea or situation is not quite fully developed, but generally the songs' brevity (or, putting it another way, their limited expansiveness) is but one of their strengths – another, of course, being Abbie's powerful use of simple imagery. As on Spring, Abbie herself plays the vast majority of the instruments heard on the recording ("yep, even the melodica!"), although she again calls on Jane Griffiths for some glorious string arrangements on three songs and her now-regular mini-team of Tony Poole (12-string), Colin Fletcher (bass) and Ady Milward (drums) appear here and there. I feel the CD probably tails off a bit towards the end, with Safe To Be and the final track (which is effectively just a brief slow air played - albeit beautifully - on low whistle) somewhat losing the sense of direction maintained throughout the foregoing tracks. On Low Summer as an overall entity there's not quite the sense of onward, forward artistic development from Spring that one might have then expected, but to be honest I'd far rather have another consistent disc that preserves the abnormally high standard Abbie had already set on those first two albums - so I've no complaints on that score.
www.abbielathe.co.uk
David Kidman
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