The arrestingly named ‘Ma Polaine’s Great Decline’ are a male-female duo who present folk tinged Americana which touches upon major themes of human companionship and world injustice.
Lyricist Beth Parker says the album arose out of the silence and solitude of the Covid Lockdown which she remembers fondly as ”an inspiring, magical, surreal time”.
The enforced retreat from the chaos of the daily world allowed Parker to embrace her wandering dyslexic mind and accept that our individual imperfections and transient transactions are part of what make us human. “I tried to write this song a thousand times” she confesses in River.
For the recording she and guitarist Clinton Hough are joined by Nick Pini on bass and Jimmy Norden on drums. It was recorded live in just three days in Bert Jansch’s Studio in the band's hometown, Frome, in Somerset and mixed by Milo Ferriera-Hayes.
The title track is a reminder that we are just Molecules floating in a unverse that can sometimes be “monstrous and cold” but also intimate and warm.
Quirky wordplay and fragile vocals make the vulnerabilities of existence endearing.
The effect is to inspire more of a subtle uplift than a great decline.
