(Official Press - Release Date: November 7th, 2014) Nine
years on from his widely-acclaimed 'Iron Stone' recording, Scottish
singer-songwriter, harpist and guitarist Robin Williamson returns with
an album of self-penned pieces - thoughtful and touching meditations on
love, destiny, the natural world, roads travelled, and the daily
pleasures of being alive today.
This fourth album for ECM finds Williamson in best creative form on his diverse instruments, drawing inspiration also from the ingenious improvisational input of two American musicians, violist Mat Maneri (further developing the association initiated on 'Skirting the River Road') and percussionist Ches Smith (last heard on ECM with Tim Berne's Snakeoil band). It was recorded in Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, in January 2014.
Nine years on from his widely-acclaimed 'Iron Stone' recording, Scottish singer-songwriter, harpist and guitarist Robin Williamson returns with an album of self-penned pieces - thoughtful and touching meditations on love, destiny, the natural world, roads travelled, and the daily pleasures of being alive today.
Williamson, born 1943 in Edinburgh and a working musician for 55 years, is in fine voice as he enters his eighth decade, his harp and guitar playing is assured and inventive, and his creative curiosity as undiminished as the sense of wonder evident in his song texts. His ECM albums have continued to explore the nexus of roots and free experiment which made his old group, the Incredible String Band, so intriguing and his collaborations with improvising musicians have opened up new and broader possibilities in this regard. Of the singer/songwriters who came to public attention in Britain in the 1960s, none has more creatively mined traditions to shape new music.
'Trusting in the Rising Light', with its focus on Robin's own songs and sung poetry, follows three albums - 'The Seed-at-Zero' (recorded 2000), 'Skirting The River Road' (2001) and 'The Iron Stone' (2005) - which were concerned, in different measure, with his responses to the work of poets including Dylan Thomas, Henry Vaughan, Walt Whitman, William Blake, Thomas Wyatt, John Clare and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
This fourth album for ECM finds Williamson in best creative form on his diverse instruments, drawing inspiration also from the ingenious improvisational input of two American musicians, violist Mat Maneri (further developing the association initiated on 'Skirting the River Road') and percussionist Ches Smith (last heard on ECM with Tim Berne's Snakeoil band). It was recorded in Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, in January 2014.
Nine years on from his widely-acclaimed 'Iron Stone' recording, Scottish singer-songwriter, harpist and guitarist Robin Williamson returns with an album of self-penned pieces - thoughtful and touching meditations on love, destiny, the natural world, roads travelled, and the daily pleasures of being alive today.
Williamson, born 1943 in Edinburgh and a working musician for 55 years, is in fine voice as he enters his eighth decade, his harp and guitar playing is assured and inventive, and his creative curiosity as undiminished as the sense of wonder evident in his song texts. His ECM albums have continued to explore the nexus of roots and free experiment which made his old group, the Incredible String Band, so intriguing and his collaborations with improvising musicians have opened up new and broader possibilities in this regard. Of the singer/songwriters who came to public attention in Britain in the 1960s, none has more creatively mined traditions to shape new music.
'Trusting in the Rising Light', with its focus on Robin's own songs and sung poetry, follows three albums - 'The Seed-at-Zero' (recorded 2000), 'Skirting The River Road' (2001) and 'The Iron Stone' (2005) - which were concerned, in different measure, with his responses to the work of poets including Dylan Thomas, Henry Vaughan, Walt Whitman, William Blake, Thomas Wyatt, John Clare and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Trusting In The Rising Light finds him working with two US
musicians, who joined him in Wales for this session recorded in January
2014, at Monmouth’s famous Rockfield Studio. Mat Maneri was a key
contributor to Skirting The River Road and The Iron Stone,
and he has toured in Europe with Williamson. A prodigiously gifted
player, Maneri can shadow Robin’s vocal ornamentation through any style
of music. “Our Evening Walk”, built on a sruti-box drone and a scalar
melody shared between Robin’s Hardanger fiddle and Mat’s viola, leans
towards raga. “These Hands of Mine” hints at Grappelli and jazz of the
swing era. “Just West of Monmouth” veers between abstract sound painting
and spontaneous underlining of Williamson’s imagery. “Your Kisses”, on
the other hand, has a rockier drive than most Williamson music of recent
vintage, with viola tracing a feverish path against Robin’s bluesy
guitar.
Maneri and Ches Smith also have a proven rapport – latterly they’ve been working together in Smith’s new trio with Craig Taborn. Ches, last heard on ECM with Tim Berne’s Snakeoil band, was brought to the Williamson session to play primarily vibraphone, as he does on the piece “Swan”, for instance, conjuring shimmering reflections of the sailing bird “joining the worlds of air and water”. But as the session progressed the drum kit came into play, perhaps most strikingly on “Night Comes Quick In LA” a duet for free drums and bardic beat poet, a song of experience with some of Robin’s tersest commentary: “What a shadow is fame / Fame pollutes the heart / Fame’s toxic fume / Fatal fame treads the old alley”. Much better to trust in the rising light, the title track suggests, and “the way of the waves, their rise and fall.”
Where most of the album incorporates improvising into the trio settings of the songs, the single entirely solo track “The Cards” was also a spontaneous gesture in the studio. Robin’s melody for the song is based upon the traditional Irish harp air “The Coolin”, and is explored on the guitar for the first time here, as fresh and as daring as the rest of this remarkable recording.
2014 has been a busy year for Williamson. Amongst other activities he has been revisiting his Seed-At-Zero programme in the course of a number of performances for the Dylan Thomas centenary, playing his settings of the poems also in Thomas’s old hometown of Laugharne, Wales, and as part of the Knutsford Literature Festival. Songs from the Trusting In The Rising Light repertoire are embraced in his current solo concerts, details of which can be found on his web site at Pig's Whiskers Music as well as the tour pages of the ECM site.
Maneri and Ches Smith also have a proven rapport – latterly they’ve been working together in Smith’s new trio with Craig Taborn. Ches, last heard on ECM with Tim Berne’s Snakeoil band, was brought to the Williamson session to play primarily vibraphone, as he does on the piece “Swan”, for instance, conjuring shimmering reflections of the sailing bird “joining the worlds of air and water”. But as the session progressed the drum kit came into play, perhaps most strikingly on “Night Comes Quick In LA” a duet for free drums and bardic beat poet, a song of experience with some of Robin’s tersest commentary: “What a shadow is fame / Fame pollutes the heart / Fame’s toxic fume / Fatal fame treads the old alley”. Much better to trust in the rising light, the title track suggests, and “the way of the waves, their rise and fall.”
Where most of the album incorporates improvising into the trio settings of the songs, the single entirely solo track “The Cards” was also a spontaneous gesture in the studio. Robin’s melody for the song is based upon the traditional Irish harp air “The Coolin”, and is explored on the guitar for the first time here, as fresh and as daring as the rest of this remarkable recording.
2014 has been a busy year for Williamson. Amongst other activities he has been revisiting his Seed-At-Zero programme in the course of a number of performances for the Dylan Thomas centenary, playing his settings of the poems also in Thomas’s old hometown of Laugharne, Wales, and as part of the Knutsford Literature Festival. Songs from the Trusting In The Rising Light repertoire are embraced in his current solo concerts, details of which can be found on his web site at Pig's Whiskers Music as well as the tour pages of the ECM site.
Personnel: Robin Williamson (vocals, Celtic harp, guitar, Hardanger
fiddle, whistles), Mat Maneri (viola), Ches Smith (vibraphone, drums,
gongs)
Track Listing
| Song Title | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Trusting in the Rising Light | 05:29 |
| 2. | Roads | 05:23 |
| 3. | Our Evening Walk | 05:41 |
| 4. | The Cards | 03:02 |
| 5. | Just West of Monmouth | 03:35 |
| 6. | Night Comes Quick in LA | 04:43 |
| 7. | Alive Today | 04:20 |
| 8. | These Hands | 02:03 |
| 9. | Swan | 04:14 |
| 10. | Your Kisses | 03:59 |
| 11. | Falling Snow | 04:22 |
| 12. | The Islands of the Inner Firth | 04:12 |
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