The Birthday in the title of this album is the 100th birthday of Scottish poet George Mackay Brown and this album is a fictional account of his relationship with Stella Cartwright and the poems he would write to her on her birthday. As well as the relationship between Stella and Stanley Roger Green.
This is the third different band I've reviewed Monica Queen singing within the last 18 months or so as she is currently also a part of Tenement & Temple and The Gracious Losers as well as originally being the singer with Thrum.
Chris Connelly is the legendary alternative musician who was once part of the magnificent and overlooked Fini Tribe as well as having worked with Ministry and The Revolting Cocks amongst many others.
The album opens with the atmospheric and stirring My Father Took Me Everywhere that features Monica Queen inhabiting the character of Stella Cartwright who was the poetical muse of George Mackay Brown and explaining how her father took her everywhere with him as a kid, to the bars and streets, as the music swirls in places it reminds me of the Kevin Coyne and Dagmar Krause collaboration Babble.
Stella, Stan and Dostoevsky opens a bit like Stella by Chris Spedding, it has some very lazy sax and a very intriguing tale at its heart that Chris Connelly sings and asks if you've read Dostoevsky the sort of question I'd answer by saying I'd not only read him, I'd visited his cell at the Peter And Paul Fortress and the apartment he wrote Crime And Punishment in, rather that talking about going to the George IV bridge and referencing the magisterial Stella By Starlight one of the perennial Jazz classics.
A Minor Hoolie is an upbeat party song that has some of the quickest vocals I've ever heard Monica sing, Chris keeps up as they throw lines at each other over some cool percussion and a droning organ sound.
Cigarettes At Dawn is a cool poem Where Stella asks if you could read an ashtray and tell us about the lives they have affected.
A Maze Among The Tenements has a marching band feel to the music as Chris's strident vocals tell of life among the poor of the tenements living in the key flats, the cello adds layers of sadness to the sound as they try not to find their way out of the maze and the Tenements and poverty towards a more fulfilled life.
Tae The Poets raises a dram or three to a variety of legendary Scottish poets on this nice folky drinking song that has some hoots and hollers that recall The Hothouse Flowers in places.
What Strangeness Of Light And Dark is a very wintery sounding poem about George's roots in Orkney and how shy it's made him, the violins just make this sound more emotional and rather sad as that rain lashes down.
The Lowland Fulcrum is almost a hymnal to the joys of the lowlands with all sorts of historical facts of the poets' lives thrown in, this is stirring and suffused with heartfelt love for each other.
A Rain Soaked Idyll is a just beautiful piece of very bucolic music that accentuates the rain spattered words of how love can grow in the middle of a storm and the need to express yourself in a similar way to George and Stella.
A Phantom Marriage is a slow sad tale of getting married by mistake seemingly, where the harp and strings add a very romantic feel to this poem, as they wake up to what's happened and try to dowse the flames licking at them.
O Blessed St Magnus is an atmospheric piece about fleeing back to the middle of nowhere or Orkney to find peace and to quiet the voices in his head.
The Poet Herself is a very gentle and hungover piece of working your way through the fog trying to remember what happen during the drunken roaming of the night before.
A Desolate Spell is about having writers block and being in the depths of depression and pain, probably due to severe alcoholic haze as the gentle almost ambient music slowly swells and the yearning and love he feels for Stella just adds to his black mood.
Let Us be Hushed is Stella trying to lift George's mood from a distance explaining why he's special and what they mean to each other, this is deeply touching and the barely their music is a subtle adornment.
My heart Is A Plough On This Wilderness Feel opens with the sounds of thunder leading into this dark slightly desperate poem full of loss and loneliness.
Smiler Wi' A Knife is an elegiac fight song as everything falls apart and the strings swirl and they go and sit in the dark with the despair they feel.
The Birthday Poems has a very slightly happier feel to it as the tale of the Poems George wrote for Stella unfolds and he apologizes for finding out she died alone and to make sure she knew that George carried on loving her and writing the Birthday poems no matter what happened between them.
The song cycle ends with the lush orchestration of From A Dreamers Shore one last soliloquy from Stella to George full of sadness and regret that he no longer comes around. This album really needs to be heard in a darkened room with a nice bottle of single malt for company and it's a real treat for lovers of Scottish poetry.
Find out more at https://thebirthdaypoems.com/ https://chrisconnellyjnana.bandcamp.com/album/the-birthday-poems https://www.facebook.com/ChrisConnellyOfficial https://www.facebook.com/MonicaQueenandThrum
