Reviews
Artist: Ray Cooper
Album: Tales Of Love War & Death By Hanging
Label: West Park
Tracks: 1o
Website:http://www.myspace.com/raycooperchopper
Best known as Chopper from the Oysterband, "Tales Of Love War & Death By Hanging" sees Ray Cooper move up to centre stage and puts his name firmly on the tin.
There is a darkness that permeates through the album, not unexpected considering the title, though it's not the oppressive darkness brought about by despair, more the darkness that draws people together so that they can share the light and warmth that they have and tell the tales that brought them there.
It's also an album that makes great use of instruments and instrumental phrases to emphasise parts of the stories laid out to you. Many of the tales are allegorical, others, though set in the past easily find their way into a contemporary context. War, for example has universal truths that are as true of Agincourt as they are of Kandahar.
Ray Cooper has a mixed cultural background, in addition he's been based in Sweden for over ten years now. It's given him a rich mix of folk heritages and influences, something that stands out on this album. Songs that should sound more familiar than they do benefit from the way those influences are brought together. A fiddle piece played differently, a combination of instruments that may not normally work together.
There's a lot of spirit in the album, not just from the passion of it's creators, more from the choice of the characters in the songs. Even when you're on your ways to the gallows you've still got a little more time to rail against the world before your feel the Bridport dagger's bite.
It gives the songs and their presentation a real sense of endearment. You try to find some common ground with the people and their emotions, almost to try and become a part of the song.
There's something about people in folk songs, especially the wrong 'uns, that give them a sense of immortality. It's something that transcends class, the working man and woman are as likely to be captured in song as the dukes and duchesses, their lives captured. People probably won't write songs about people being stuck in the West Indies because of a bit of volcanic, but they wrote songs about people that went to see in sailing boats.
People are better known now and easier forgotten, Chopper seems to understand that, he also understands that that doesn't mean that times still aren't easy for people. Ultimately this is an album about lives, snippets of a diary, and it's one that found some really choice pages. Ray Cooper has used his time in the spotlight and used it well.