2008, music: Cath & Phil Tyler
Cath & Phil Tyler
Dumb Supper
No-Fi, 2008
These two transmit the essences of folk at a root level. Unhurried, unpolished, beautifully spare harmonies, full of throat and heart. Opening on "Wether's Skin" with a plucked guitar, an open rolling gate to Cath's voice, unguarded, naturally weathered and perfect for the demands of hazy old folksongs. Like the best folk music, the weight doesn't kick in immediately; here a couple songs seem to have become conjoined over the years, so against the story of the song itself, there's a constant refrain "Jennifer Jenny Rosemary/As the dew flies over the mulberry tree/As the dew flies over the green valley" that lends to an imagery and locality entirely consistent with the tone of the music. That obscures the subject matter, an old fable about (and from the view of) a farmer who marries a higher-class woman who refuses to work. Morally incapable of beating his wife, he reasons that beating a goatskin is fine, so he kills the goat and wraps her in one. Mirroring his coping process and the dual nature of the lyrics, the violence done is presented, "whickety-whack," as a schoolyard chant. So when Phil shows up for some restrained harmony, things are complicated. The gender roles are already skewed, so his presence adds further to the uncertainty; he both adds to the song and intensifies its unease.
The album continues much like that, largely tales of disquiet and despair. Cath's usually in a gravelly mode, vocally, but she's got a fantastic range of inflection, perfectly capable of sending up a more wistful performance as on "Slumber Boats (Baby Boats)," or a whimsical one, and moves perfectly from British to American folk, as on "Wild Stormy Deep." There are acapellas, there's even distortion on "Morning" that would make my parents visibly cringe, but it all seems to have been fully considered, and suits the tone.
I think, returning prodigally to folk as I have over the last few years, that my interest in it these days lies in how the emotional aspects of the songs have such potential to grow and take on their own resonance as the specifics, lyrically and musically, are passed and changed, singer to singer.