‘From The Dawn Chorus’ emerges direct from out of the void that is the creative dark side of permanently touring veteran and would-be legend TIM HOLEHOUSE.
Pastoral and experimental folk styles are delivered with an ever-intensifying trance-like ambience, as the record’s expansive depth becomes more and more apparent. This is the fuelled-by-downers sound of pop music’s antithesis
The record kicks off with the title track, as the inevitable birdsong intro gives way to a melancholy and rather avant-garde string arrangement. Mantra-like dual vocals see Holehouse engaged in a psycho-duet with Ruth Anderson-Davis.
Trancelike fingerpicked acoustic guitar provides the basis for Everyday You/Good Morning Mr. Vampire, two tracks that blend seamlessly together.
Holehouse’s despondent slide guitar style adds substance to the sense of stillness, as his vocals drop to a whisper during ‘Rhinestone’. Dark bass sounds and fretboard-frenzied distortion in slow-motion mark the track’s gradual descent into a bittersweet cacophony of feedback.
The cello/fiddle arrangements run in tandem with alternating bursts of piano and guitar to provide the understated power of the accurately titled ‘Sensory Lullaby’, before the clawhammer/slide twang prevails during ‘Tree On The Hill’, with Holehouse’s voice growling and grinding in response.
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Spaced-out and dark, ‘Spiked Humour’ mutters mental illness as James J. Barrat’s trumpet providing a stark contrast out of nowhere.
Minimalist classical influences define the repetitive piano melody during ‘Searching For…’ as the spoken word vocals recite flashes of the past.
Finally, ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ sounds like a resurrection from out of the blackness that precedes it, with the strings alive and everywhere in the mix dominating Holehouse’s low-key guitar psychosis.
Holehouse is another artist who, in living the reality of life on the road, asks the listener to suspend his or her judgement in order to gain the far from instant rewards of his craft.
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