As reported on W&H last year, FRAN RODGERS' performance provided one of the highlights of my Leeds festival for 2008.
"The Green Room" is the most ambitious and the most satisfying set of songs she has released to date. The dulcimer, the use of loops to augment the solo sound, a stronger confidence and a mature consistency in the songs all go well beyond what we have heard before.
Tom Fleming (the rich second voice in WILD BEASTS) sings a marvellous duet on "I See Horses Flee". Lindsay Wilson plays bass and Bruce Renshaw drums, with James Kenosha producing. All four are significant contributors to the musical life of the city, with multiple name-drop credits to each. All contribute with reserve and respect, helping to create (in essence) a solo performance with great dignity and power.
The folk tradition, where Fran has her roots, is fully honoured in five songs with strong tunes and haunting stories sung with emotional depth and a simple honesty.
"The Lighthouse" is a mythic archetype, opening with snatches of a ghostly Appalachian dulcimer whose medieval spirit is reinforced by a monkish choir of Fran's own voice. The song describes a solitary devotion to a distant love.
"I See Horses Flee" is the lead track, busily cantered along by Renshaw's delicate drumming. "The will be tears tonight" she sings, as Fleming's sympathetic tenor voice weaves its way into the story, coaxing and encouraging. Simple layers are built up and the insistent tune is picked out on Fran's; very nice Gibson guitar. It's a steadying and satisfying song.
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"To This Land of Mine" has a touch of the early American settlers about it, with a simple dulcimer and a lyric that celebrates place and trust. It's a gospel song for people far from home.
"A Place To Lay Your Head" is a song of reassurance and affection in a world that won't stay the same, a world where people, eventually, are compelled to movement and loss.
"The Protestor" could be read as a title glancing back to the folk revival of the early 60s. What it really offers is a much more contemporary tale with a much older theme: the pain of jealousy. "She marched you to the river, and she marched you to the sea ... why is she such a monument to you?" The song, and the EP, ends with Fran's solo voice in a swirl of her own harmonies, like flurries of snow in a bleak landscape.
The EP is a delight.
www.franrodgers.co.uk
http://www.last.fm/music/fran+rodgers
www.myspace.com/franrodgers
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