Review:'TENEMENTALS, THE' 'Glasgow: A History (Vol I of VI)'
- Label: 'Strength In Numbers Records'
- Genre: 'Folk'
- Release Date: '29th November 2024'
Our Rating:
The band is comprised of Glaswegian academics, musicians and artists. Their debut album is a series of nine songs that explore the radical side of the city’s past.
It is more than just an exercise in nostalgia. however. These are protest songs for our times; folk tunes for the here and now.
The band describe the record as “an attempt to seize moments of Glasgow’s past and blast them into the future” with the express intention of encouraging listeners to think and act in a radical way.
Production costs of the album were partly subsidised by the Glasgow City Heritage Trust.
The strident opener, The Owl of Minerva, takes its title from Hegel's aphorism and sets it to a Stooges riff, The Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk signifies the recognition that we come to understand a way of life just as it passes away. This wise bird is imagined as watching over the River Clyde speculating how interruption of the historical process may constitute a truly revolutionary act.
Universal Alienation (We're Not Rats) takes its cue from lines of a rabble rousing speech by Jimmy Reid, a trade union leader in the 70s who was elected as the University of Glasgow Rector. An extract from this speech is included to hammer home the message.
Singing duties are divided between David Archibald, Jen Cunnion and Therese Martin with the exception of Peter Pike or Pink a song about the 1820 Radical War where Sarah Martin from Belle and Sebastian takes on lead vocals . This tune is in a similar vein to A Passion Flower's Lament which is about men who died fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Musical backing consists of guitar (Simon Whittle), keyboards (Ronan Breslin), bass guitar (Mark Ferrari), drums (Bob Anderson) and two cellists (Jessica Argo and Olivia McLean). Sophie Askew also contributes harp to a number of the tracks.
The closing track - People Make Glasgow - sums up the thinking behind this album which is to make history a living thjing rather than a bookish pursuit.
It is a strident call to arms as well as being a statement of civic pride. It is specifically about Glasgow but its anti-capitalist sentiments are universal.
If the album title is to be believed, Volumes II to VI will follow. Bring ‘em on, I say.
