Mount the Air: Difference between revisions
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'''''Mount the Air''''', the eight album by [[Folk music of England|English folk]] group [[The Unthanks]], was released on 9 February 2015. It received |
'''''Mount the Air''''', the eight album by [[Folk music of England|English folk]] group [[The Unthanks]], was released on 9 February 2015. It received five-starred reviews in ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Irish Times'' and four-starred reviews in ''The Financial Times'' and ''The Guardian''. |
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The title track was issued as a single on 8 December 2014.<ref name="Gallacher Mount">{{cite news | url=http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2014/11/the-unthanks-new-video-from-new-album-mount-the-air/ | title=The Unthanks – New Album & Video: Mount The Air | work=[[Folk Radio UK]] | date=11 November 2014 | accessdate=11 January 2015 | author=[[Folk Radio UK |Alex Gallacher]]}}</ref> "Flutter", another track from the album, was released as a single on 16 February 2015. |
The title track was issued as a single on 8 December 2014.<ref name="Gallacher Mount">{{cite news | url=http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2014/11/the-unthanks-new-video-from-new-album-mount-the-air/ | title=The Unthanks – New Album & Video: Mount The Air | work=[[Folk Radio UK]] | date=11 November 2014 | accessdate=11 January 2015 | author=[[Folk Radio UK |Alex Gallacher]]}}</ref> "Flutter", another track from the album, was released as a single on 16 February 2015. |
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==Reception== |
==Reception== |
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''Mount the Air'' received a five-starred review in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''. Reviewer Helen Brown described the album as "a slow, swirling affair that mixes original material with traditional tales. Underpinned by McNally’s cool, fluid piano it’s simultaneously ancient and fresh." <ref name="Brown">{{cite news | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/11391983/Mount-the-Air-The-Unthanks-review-.html | title=Mount the Air, The Unthanks, review: 'a slow, swirling affair' | work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] | date=7 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | author=Helen Brown}}</ref> |
''Mount the Air'' received a five-starred review in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''. Reviewer Helen Brown described the album as "a slow, swirling affair that mixes original material with traditional tales. Underpinned by McNally’s cool, fluid piano it’s simultaneously ancient and fresh." <ref name="Brown">{{cite news | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/11391983/Mount-the-Air-The-Unthanks-review-.html | title=Mount the Air, The Unthanks, review: 'a slow, swirling affair' | work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] | date=7 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | author=Helen Brown}}</ref> |
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Joe Breen, writing in ''[[The Irish Times]]'' also gave the album five stars, describing ''Mount The Air'' as "their most ambitious work" ad saying that it "places them in the same league as the likes of The Gloaming and the Punch Brothers". <ref name="Breen">{{cite news | url=http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-unthanks-mount-the-air-album-review-1.2118599 | title=The Unthanks: Mount The Air | Album Review | work=[[The Irish Times]] | date=26 February 2015 | accessdate=4 April 2015 | author=Joe Breen}}</ref> |
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In a four-starred review for ''[[The Financial Times]]'', David Honigmann said: "Once a bleak Northumbrian chamber folk outfit, the Unthanks have reinvented themselves on a symphonic scale, as witness the 10-minute title track, ushered in on harps and with an orchestration that recalls Gil Evans’s work for Miles Davis."<ref name="Honigmann 2015">{{cite news | url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a1dedd84-aa78-11e4-9fa7-00144feab7de.html | title=The Unthanks: Mount The Air — review | work=[[The Financial Times]] | date=6 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | author=David Honigmann}}</ref> [[Robin Denselow]], in a four-starred review for ''[[The Guardian]]'', said: "This is a return to the gentle melancholia of Last, and while there are fine vocals from the Unthank sisters, the dominant figure is Rachel’s husband, Adrian McNally, who plays keyboards and percussion, and produced and wrote much of the music... It’s a lush, often exquisite set".<ref name="Denselow 2015">{{cite news | url=http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/05/the-unthanks-mount-the-air-review | title=The Unthanks: Mount the Air review – exquisitely melancholic folk | work=[[The Guardian]] | date=5 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | author=[[Robin Denselow]]}}</ref> Teddy Jamieson, writing in the ''[[Sunday Herald]]'', said: "The Unthanks return with an album that takes the folk tradition the sisters grew up on and sails it into wilder waters... Folk's storytelling tradition is still very much at the heart of this album. But what thrills here is the sense of scale at play in the music, the unrushed, easeful way the musicians stretch into songs, let them linger without ever overstaying their welcome. That and the earthy humanity of the sisters' voices."<ref name="Jamieson">{{cite news | url=http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/music/the-unthanks-mount-the-air-rabble-rouser.117771152 | title=The Unthanks: Mount The Air (Rabble Rouser) | work=[[Sunday Herald]] | date=8 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | location=Glasgow|author= Teddy Jamieson}}</ref> |
In a four-starred review for ''[[The Financial Times]]'', David Honigmann said: "Once a bleak Northumbrian chamber folk outfit, the Unthanks have reinvented themselves on a symphonic scale, as witness the 10-minute title track, ushered in on harps and with an orchestration that recalls Gil Evans’s work for Miles Davis."<ref name="Honigmann 2015">{{cite news | url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a1dedd84-aa78-11e4-9fa7-00144feab7de.html | title=The Unthanks: Mount The Air — review | work=[[The Financial Times]] | date=6 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | author=David Honigmann}}</ref> [[Robin Denselow]], in a four-starred review for ''[[The Guardian]]'', said: "This is a return to the gentle melancholia of Last, and while there are fine vocals from the Unthank sisters, the dominant figure is Rachel’s husband, Adrian McNally, who plays keyboards and percussion, and produced and wrote much of the music... It’s a lush, often exquisite set".<ref name="Denselow 2015">{{cite news | url=http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/05/the-unthanks-mount-the-air-review | title=The Unthanks: Mount the Air review – exquisitely melancholic folk | work=[[The Guardian]] | date=5 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | author=[[Robin Denselow]]}}</ref> Teddy Jamieson, writing in the ''[[Sunday Herald]]'', said: "The Unthanks return with an album that takes the folk tradition the sisters grew up on and sails it into wilder waters... Folk's storytelling tradition is still very much at the heart of this album. But what thrills here is the sense of scale at play in the music, the unrushed, easeful way the musicians stretch into songs, let them linger without ever overstaying their welcome. That and the earthy humanity of the sisters' voices."<ref name="Jamieson">{{cite news | url=http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/music/the-unthanks-mount-the-air-rabble-rouser.117771152 | title=The Unthanks: Mount The Air (Rabble Rouser) | work=[[Sunday Herald]] | date=8 February 2015 | accessdate=11 February 2015 | location=Glasgow|author= Teddy Jamieson}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 07:38, 4 April 2015
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Mount the Air, the eight album by English folk group The Unthanks, was released on 9 February 2015. It received five-starred reviews in The Daily Telegraph and The Irish Times and four-starred reviews in The Financial Times and The Guardian.
The title track was issued as a single on 8 December 2014.[1] "Flutter", another track from the album, was released as a single on 16 February 2015.
Reception
Mount the Air received a five-starred review in The Daily Telegraph. Reviewer Helen Brown described the album as "a slow, swirling affair that mixes original material with traditional tales. Underpinned by McNally’s cool, fluid piano it’s simultaneously ancient and fresh." [2]
Joe Breen, writing in The Irish Times also gave the album five stars, describing Mount The Air as "their most ambitious work" ad saying that it "places them in the same league as the likes of The Gloaming and the Punch Brothers". [3]
In a four-starred review for The Financial Times, David Honigmann said: "Once a bleak Northumbrian chamber folk outfit, the Unthanks have reinvented themselves on a symphonic scale, as witness the 10-minute title track, ushered in on harps and with an orchestration that recalls Gil Evans’s work for Miles Davis."[4] Robin Denselow, in a four-starred review for The Guardian, said: "This is a return to the gentle melancholia of Last, and while there are fine vocals from the Unthank sisters, the dominant figure is Rachel’s husband, Adrian McNally, who plays keyboards and percussion, and produced and wrote much of the music... It’s a lush, often exquisite set".[5] Teddy Jamieson, writing in the Sunday Herald, said: "The Unthanks return with an album that takes the folk tradition the sisters grew up on and sails it into wilder waters... Folk's storytelling tradition is still very much at the heart of this album. But what thrills here is the sense of scale at play in the music, the unrushed, easeful way the musicians stretch into songs, let them linger without ever overstaying their welcome. That and the earthy humanity of the sisters' voices."[6]
In a four-starred review, Chris White, for musicOMH, said that Mount the Air "continues The Unthanks’ journey away from the traditional north-east folk of their earlier albums towards a style that’s uniquely their own. It’s hard to think of another group anywhere who are creating music quite like this; still grounded in the sounds and spirit of their native region yet compositionally on a different planet to the pub back room strums and ceilidh jigs knocked out by most of their contemporaries."[7]
Also giving the album four stars, Thomas Ingham, writing for The Skinny, praised "the swelling and soaring arrangements of Adrian McNally, who manages to merge folk with the unease and medieval European gloom of recent records like Last Ex and the infamous In the Aeroplane Over the Sea."[8]
Simon Holland, for Folk Radio UK, said: "With two tracks at over 10 minutes, this was never going to be a short album, but... [it] does what great albums do, takes you on a journey, offers surprises, but gives you rewards on route, satisfying head and heart, with some moments of pure emotional static charge that make the hairs on the neck stand proud."[9]
However, The Observer's Neil Spencer bucked the trend, giving the album three stars, and criticising the "ambitious but lumbering orchestration... Two instrumentals eschew the group’s strength; more voices please".[10]
Personnel
- The Unthanks
- Rachel Unthank – voice
- Becky Unthank – voice
- Adrian McNally – piano, voice, celeste, kalimba, Fender Rhodes, chord organ, glockenspiel, Indian harmonium, percussion
- Niopha Keegan – quartet violin, solo fiddle, voice
- Chris Price – electric bass, guitar, piano tinkles on "Last Lullaby"
- Additional musicians
- Lizzie Jones – trumpet, flugelhorn
- Martin Douglas – drums, percussion
- Dan Rogers – double bass
- Tom Arthurs – trumpet on "Mount the Air"
- Kathleen Ord – violin
- James Boyle – violin
- Gabriel Wait – cello
- Nick Byrne – cello
- Eilidh Gillespie – flute
- Esther Swift – harp
References
- ^ Alex Gallacher (11 November 2014). "The Unthanks – New Album & Video: Mount The Air". Folk Radio UK. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
- ^ Helen Brown (7 February 2015). "Mount the Air, The Unthanks, review: 'a slow, swirling affair'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
- ^ Joe Breen (26 February 2015). "The Unthanks: Mount The Air". The Irish Times. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
{{cite news}}: Text "Album Review" ignored (help) - ^ David Honigmann (6 February 2015). "The Unthanks: Mount The Air — review". The Financial Times. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
- ^ Robin Denselow (5 February 2015). "The Unthanks: Mount the Air review – exquisitely melancholic folk". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
- ^ Teddy Jamieson (8 February 2015). "The Unthanks: Mount The Air (Rabble Rouser)". Sunday Herald. Glasgow. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
- ^ Chris White (6 February 2015). "The Unthanks – Mount The Air". musicOMH. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
- ^ Thomas Ingham (9 February 2015). "The Unthanks – Mount The Air". The Skinny. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
- ^ Simon Holland (1 February 2015). "The Unthanks – Mount the Air". Folk Radio UK. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
- ^ Neil Spencer (8 February 2015). "The Unthanks: Mount the Air review – more voices please". The Observer. Retrieved 4 April 2015.