Thirty Pounds Of Bone
Album: I Cannot Sing You Here, But For Songs Of Where
Label: Armellodie
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.thirtypoundsofbone.bandcamp.com

A decidedly strange offering, even by the self-imposed standards of songwriter-performer Johny Lamb, who's been hiding under this pseudonym (denoting the average weight of a dead man's bones, apparently) for at least six years now. Its twelve self-penned songs explore the notions of identity and home through being split into four distinct, separate invocations of the theme of place (the past, heritage, the present and the in-between), while embodying and articulating experiences of itinerancy and migrancy. Johny's capabilities as a multi-instrumentalist (which extend to three or four lines of near-unreadable small-font instrument names) ensure a consistently interesting musical palette to clothe his often dislocating observations, and sundry other vocalists appear from time to time with cameos and field recordings. Water never seems to be far away from Johny's mind; its lapping rhythms infuse the disc's early stages and the cries of gulls occur within the supporting cast of found sounds and samples.

The soundscapes of the disc are never less than intriguing, and often challenging, but it's likely that it will impress (for its creativity) and infuriate (ditto) in almost equal measure, and divide a potential audience. Me, I've come to feel very favourably disposed towards Johny's eccentricities, which display a musical intelligence that will almost certainly remain unsuspected by those listeners who can't hear beyond the idiosyncrasies.

The broad church of folk, constantly evolving and changing through independent thinking - and an evident wide knowledge and perception of the history of wyrd and psych musics - figure large, from the exquisite The Ballad Of Cootehill (where Johny sounds uncannily like a more restrained version of John Otway) to the Syd Barrett-like The Truth Of The Matter; from the world-weary The Streets I Staggered Down to the cautiously Poguesy banjo-and-accordion bash of the instrumental How We Make A Mongrel Of The Music Of The Archipelago; and from the delicate A Song For Newlyn to the storm-tossed closer The Wolf On The Shelf. Perhaps best of all is Mother, This Land Won't Hold Me, which moves from a solid a cappella opening to a fulsome, dense Trembling Bells-type backing complete with grinding electric guitars and whose opening melodic phrase threatens to mimic the traditional Galway Shawl. The self-referencing nature of folk and pop music culture is keenly felt and expressed, and is central to Johny's philosophy, as is the importance of cherished possessions and experiences. In which connection I feel this album, for all its wilful hybridity, its proud peculiarities and occasional stubborn impenetrabilities, may in time become one of my own cherished possessions.

David Kidman