Review: Richard Thompson - Dream Attic

Richard Thompson's latest release finds its prolific creator reveling in fresh artistic abundance three years on from 2007's Sweet Warrior. The album is a patchwork of performances pieced together from a few US dates, ordinarily an unlikely recipe for consistency but given the quality of the musicianship (Dream Attic once again features long-term collaborator Pete Zorn, returning to Thompson after a sojourn with Steeleye Span on tour last year) it is hard to believe the absent takes could be any less immaculate. This collection again showcases Thompson's peerless prowess on guitar and combative, uncompromising songwriting, typified by biting, banker-baiting opener The Money Shuffle (think Show of Hands meets 10cc) and modern murder ballad Sidney Wells. However, Thompson is most affecting when more personal and A Brother Slips Away, referring to the death of Davy Graham, proves the master guitarist doesn't need to be playing at full pelt to impress. His bleakest poetry is reserved for mortality-cursing Crimescene: 'You plan and he plans / You sleep while he steals / Your wheel can only spin / Inside of other wheels'.

Thompson's women are 'Jezebel', 'a piece of work', 'bugging me' - but his men are murderers, bankers and Sting (Here Comes Geordie). As unfazed as he sounds aggrieved, as sensitive as he sounds vindictive, he despairs of human frailties and failings. Albeit without the same majesty, Among the Gorse, Among the Grey evokes 1974's dystopian, world-weary End of the Rainbow but imbued with the energy of the stage, he rages, rails and rallies. At times, he might even be jolly, the prevailing lyrical bleakness not precluding Thompson from singing with tongue sometimes in cheek. Not all songs quite find their mark; a couple drag and at seventy-two minutes this is almost an exhausting listen in a single sitting, despite romping home with Bad Again and epic closer If Love Whispers Your Name.

Dream Attic finds Thompson in rude form, more than forty years into a recording career of such consistency and craft that comparisons cannot flatter. Is he Britain's Bob Dylan? No-one really comes closer but Richard Thompson remains resolutely his own man.

Welcome back to the RaW Folk blog

So, it's been a busy summer. Jon Boden has kicked off his Folk Song a Day project and has two splendid albums, featuring July and August's tracks, to show for it so far; today's song is available to hear, here. Bob Dylan didn't disappoint headlining Hop Farm festival at his only UK date this year, Eliza Carthy & Norma Waterson released their debut as a duo and Marling and Mumford missed out on the Mercury prize. Back in July I jollied down to the Eden Sessions to catch Ruarri Joseph, Martha Wainwright and Paolo Nutini playing between the biomes, watched by Steve Knightley and Seth Lakeman. More of the latter later.

Of course, the elephant in this particularly blog post is the cavernous abyss between me and retirement, my lack of progress in navigating a way across, and the more modest cleft left by RaW Folk now that I have graduated. I found student radio to be a wonderfully creative environment and wish everyone well at RaW, which will continue to broadcast unflinching, entertaining and absorbing student radio from its new home next term. I'm looking forward to popping back from time to time - the station is forty this year. The graduate turnover is an unfortunate necessity; many programmes never have the opportunity to bed down, form roots and mix metaphors. Thanks again to you all for helping RaW Folk to last as long as it could.

As I mentioned last time around, I intend to keep this blog going for a while. I'll be posting reviews of the new albums I hear coming through, maybe the odd spotify playlist too and occasionally something I do might seem relevant enough to write about without being self-indulgent. Hopefully I'll be back on air somewhere at some point!

When Seth Lakeman played The Copper Rooms at Warwick Uni last November, he opened with a foreboding, stirring, stomping song, The Hurlers, from Poor Man's Heaven, based on the legend of the ancient Cornish who failed to choose church over a Sunday game of hurling and were turned to stone to make them think about what they'd done.



Welcome to Bodmin Moor, where the Hurlers Stone Circle - in fact three near-concentric rings - stands tallish to this day. It's a bracing, barren landscape (too boggy for much of a game now - stout shoes recommended) but worth a visit if you're round about, knowing if you see any non-mineralised people, they're quite probably Lakeman fans too.