Reviews

The Clarkes And Co
Album: Save the Pangolin and Nine Other Love Stories
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.theclarkesandco.bandcamp.com/

Based in Stourbridge with the core line-up of Stephen and Sue Clarke, he on guitar, she English concertina occasionally augmented guitarist Dave Nock, and Steve Alcock on mandolin, they trade in acoustic and at times pastoral folk with wry, sometimes witty lyrics about matters of the heart, passing time and, occasionally, politics

The ebb tide of the years is the place marker for the opening musician-themed circular fingerpicked 'June Moon Spoon' with its intro lines "you took some drugs/Yeah you joined the band/Then you went down to the pub, Called the Castle of Sand/Counting out your change and you're supping up your beer/Your best friend says that it's all downhill from here" with its youthful self-destructive tendencies ("Climbed the tree for fun/Then you sawed off the branch/The one you were standing on") and .family fragmentations ("You married your sweetheart, raised a family/Your wife she flew left the nest but your kids are yet to leave").It ends though with the positive thought that while the "house of cards will not restack ….There's still time to call the tune/To find the rhyme for June and Spoon" rather than just "howling at the moon in a garden on the edge of town".

Given a choppy rhythm, ' Starlings' sketches a long-lasting romantic bond though the image of a pair of birds "there's couple out there perching/A Mr and Mrs too/And the wall they're on needs painting/But it tells a story too…a kind of confirmation/In our wonder of it all").

Opening with concertina, 'Coming Home To Me' is basically about finding yourself in memories of the past after losing direction ("Gone are the days/When I wasn't really here…Don't know where I'm going to/But I do know where I've been").

The sort of title track, the close harmony and fingerpicked 'Pangolin' (a scaly ant-eater if you didn't know) opens with an image of a clay model made by a friend and moves to talk of conservation and potential extinction with it hunted for its meat and medicinal scales.

Another with a circling guitar pattern, the title of the bluesy folk 'Car Park D (For Chemotherapy)' tells its own story with its hospital visit observations ("There's a corridor so long the end can't be seen/Half way down they've put a vending machine./A sign above says it's Heritage Centre/On carboard box it says Pay Nurses Better… Here's a leather recliner and an IV stand/A cannula for the vein in my left hand").

With a musical mood somewhere between Cohen and Simon, the five-minute 'The Man It Happened To' takes a similar look at potential mortality ("You won't see it coming/You won't hear those blaring horns./It's too late to get the warning") with a stiff upper lip response ("When the sky comes down on you/Put on your hat and walk on through"), as they declare "you break bread with your demon/Sit down with your foes/Doubts and fears about even/How you fought to let them go/Though you know you've lost the game/You go and play it anyway".

A troubadour Americana number, 'Rockabye Lullaby' is an at least partial post-recovery celebration ("Now the meaning of good news/Has been redefined/Not what we would choose/But I'll make them friends of mine… We survivors may lock horns/With our frailty and desire/I see the stars in their trillions/With my back 'ag-en' the fire.").

As such, the vaguely McTell-ish 'Dancing Backwards' is about being grateful for what you have and the time you've had it ("You've got me dancing backwards…My castles in the air now/I know they're not for keeps/Show me your still waters/And I will dive in deep") though it carries hints of a break-up … ("you're not coming my way/I'm headed for the street/Like that bird on the wire/I think that's how I tend to feel/The only thing I know for sure/Is who got the better deal").

That suggestion carries over more evidently into the nimbly picked and discordant concertina 'Between The Thorn And The Rose' ("He climbed a mountain to see where he'd come from/When he got back down again he could not find his way home…She packed a suitcase, all memories and tears/The worst and the best thing that she had done in years/That's the way it goes").

It ends with another realistic but optimistic note with 'On We Go' as Stephen sings "I am not a saintly man, don't you pray for me/All you gotta do is knock on my door/Make a phone call/If I should fall now, I'd appreciate a hand/Help me to my feet/And I will make my stand" with its chorus "What you get is what you see/It's getting better for you and me/Books and covers are all on show/Turn the page and on we go", facing forward with "Should money get tight now, I will not get the blues/I'll notch up my belt,/Lace up my working boots/We can grow old now, down by the sea/Watching the boats come in/Watching them sail away/Down on the shore line here we come/Building our stone tower to the toppling sun". Long may their pages turn.

Mike Davies

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