Opening with the sound of the sea, the ebb and flow on to the shore, the scene is set for West Country singer songwriter Sue Harding’s new album or original songs, 'Darkling'.
The opening track is the melancholic, melodic song ‘Clovelly’. If you’ve never been to Clovelly, it’s this stunningly beautiful picture postcard seaside town in North Devon – England’s best kept secret.
What’s fascinating is that Harding captures the romantic beauty of this special, olde world coastal village unchanged by time, you can’t even drive down to the sloping, cobbled village, it’s unsuitable for something as modern as a motor car. You can imagine pirates and smugglers, dames and damsels, stepping back in time to a dashing, dangerously romantic era in English history (and the scrumpys not bad either)!
‘Clovelly’, with all its enigmatic mystery and magic sets the tone for this incredibly poetic, romantic album. Described as delicate yet powerful that’s the nature of Harding’s beautiful voice. It’s hard to pin down – deep, resonant to gentle and soft – expect the full spectrum of mood and mystery explored. It’s very much an album steeped in old English mythical, mystical traditional folk.
Even the title, ‘Darkling’ is borrowed from two poets, Matthew Arnold’s ‘On Dover Beach’ and Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Darkling Thrush’ – standing like book ends, ‘Darkling’ wraps up the themes of loss, redemption, hope joy and ultimately survival.
Hankering back to seemingly more simple times, it masks the darker side of romantic notions of Edwardian and Victorian England. Harding falls hard for the English landscape however, from its manicured beauty to its wild, untamed romanticism – less Wuthering Heights, more fairy tale romance.
For example, the fourth track takes us right in to those old English stories such as the Lady of Shallot. The nineteenth century poem by Alfred Tennyson takes on a modern twist as Hardy’s revisits the folk tale in her song ‘Catherine Street’. The tale of a young woman locked up in the tower is echoed in Hardy’s homely abode – an attic room overlooking the rooftops of Catherine Street where she lives. The story of the Lady of Shallot has inspired poets, writers and story tellers for centuries and here, in the 21st century, it continues to inspire a women’s creativity through a sense of captivity.
Hardy takes her inspiration where she can, from TV documentaries to poetry, classical Greek literature and ancient English myths and legends. Nature features throughout too – her imagery and turn of phrase is worthy of note – in short, this is poetry in song form.
All twelve tracks are written by Hardy, recorded by Josh Clark at Get Real Audio studios along with guest musician Beth Porter on cello and Josh on percussion, keyboards, ambient sounds and guitars.
‘Darkling’ by Sue Harding deserves to get noticed. With her unique voice, sensitivity, intelligence and heartfelt delivery, this is a hauntingly beautiful album, that harkens back to a time long since passed, but bringing these stories and characters back to the present day – thereby resurrecting their place in contemporary times.
Retro in style and sounding as if it could have been recorded sometime in the mid-sixties to early 1970’s, it is a fine example of the new revival in English-style traditional folk music.