Your reviewer must confess to total ignorance of Stirlingshire-born folk-popster KARINE POLWART before the arrival of her second album “Scribbled In Chalk”, but listening to it has been one of those heartening experiences where an unknown quantity comes apparently from nowhere and quietly steals into your heart.
Recorded at Castlesound in Edinburgh – birthplace of singular, seminal albums such as Josef K’s “Sorry For Laughing” and The Blue Nile’s “A Walk Across The Rooftops” – “Scribbled In Chalk” is a mature and accomplished debut with an organic approach, well-rounded arrangements and topped off by Polwart’s close-miked and attractive Scottish burr.
I hadn’t expected the strings on several songs, but they play an important part during the opening pair “Hole In The Heart” and “I’m Gonna Do It All.” The former is very much a personal call for change, with Polwart noting “I lost sight of what was under my feet/ ‘cause I always had to be on top”, while “I’m Gonna Do It All” is an ode to determination and ensuring you don’t sell your dreams off cheap. Perhaps inevitably, the live and acoustic group sound recalls James Yorkston’s Athletes, though there’s a cracking, Richard Thompson-style lead guitar break from Steven Polwart on “I’m Gonna Do It All” and Karine’s emotive delivery also occasionally recalls the under-rated Katell Keinig.
Indeed, throughout the album, her group make telling contributions. The bluesy swagger of “Where The Smoke Blows” is about the most upbeat thing here (musically at least) with stabs of fruity Hammond organ and supple upright bass; Inge Thomson’s descriptive accordion playing can’t fail to drag you to the emotional core of the excellent “Take Its’ Own Time” and the whole band pull it together for a suitably dignified and haunted performance during “Baleerie Baloo”: Polwart’s moving tribute to Jane Haining: a Scottish missionary worker in Budapest who was killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz in 1944.
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Yet even when predominantly acoustic and unadorned, Karine Polwart scores. She rarely takes the easy route in lyrical terms, yet often she makes insightful comments on taboo-ridden subjects such as prostitution (“Maybe There’s A Road”) and oblivion in general – not least on the stark “I’ve Seen It All” which has the sort of kiss-off line (“teeth for teeth and eyes for eyes/ I’ve seen it all and it all comes undone”) you’d usually find reserved for the likes of Mark Kozelek. Technology mostly remains at arms’ length – aside from some gentle loops at the dawn of “Terminal Star” – and just to press the point home they sign off with arguably the most pastoral thing here, the vivid and nature-fuelled “Follow The Heron.”
Karine Polwart, then, is an understated new talent on the scene and despite the hurried nature of its’ name “Scribbled In Chalk” will make an indelible mark if you give it the chance. Don’t rush it, now.
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