Reviews

Artist:Pillowfish
Album:Common Knowledge
Label:Self Released
Tracks:11
Rating: ***
Contact:   http://www.pillowfish.co.uk

I was once told that things everyone knows are often wrong, Drake defeated the Amarda, Cook discovered Australia, the Earth has one moon. Common Knowledge is a dangerous thing that often supports our perceptions rather than the facts.
It's common knowledge, for example that the English don't value their folk music as much as the Scots, Welsh and Irish. It's bollocks of course, there is a real passion amongst the English for their folk music. Not just the forms that it's evolved into, but also contemporary versions of the genre that has become known as traditional folk. A phrase that seems to cover the native music of everywhere from Sidmouth to Sunderland, Barrow-In-Furness to Dover.
Pillowfish, Tom Drinkwater and Helen Bell, value their traditional music, even if Tom is a Kiwi by birth. He also got to the music vi the Gaelic styles, something which allows him to draw a wide range of influence. Bell's violin and viola come from a solid English tradition, the blend is exquisite, like a tea take only from the top tip of the bush.
The album flips between tunes and songs with the emphasis on the latter. It does so with many a nod to the modern world. "Addiction" for example concentrates on some interesting addictions, including caffine and cocaine. There can't be many songs that namecheck Sherlock Holmes, Jimmy Page and Kurt Cobain in but a single line.
In many ways "Addiction" is the heart of "Common Knowledge" the ideas are very twenty first centuary, they draw on a heritage that gives them their history and setting. It can do this because somethings are eternal, love, addiction, villians, the struggle of the common man. Locations and weapons may have changed, but wars are still fought and teenagers have sex.
"Common Knowledge" is a collection of song that are well thought out and well performed. It does build on perceptions, but that means that your perception is still that music in a vehicle for thoughts as well as emotion.
The more you listen to the album, the more you understand the contribution that Helen's contribution makes to the whole. It gives the album an intimacy that warms you to it. It's a small venue sound, but one with an open fire and friends listening respectfully. "Common Knowledge" is an album that makes you think and that alone makes it worthwhile.

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