A lot of the music I review on this website is self-released, labours of love by extraordinarily talented artists who don’t these days get a look in on the corporate music providers. There are rare examples of how roots music can get heard, for example BBC Radio 6 Music or Mark Radcliffe’s The Folk Show on Radio 2 (both of which, incidentally, show to us the importance of a public service broadcaster executing its duty to provide a service to all its fee-paying citizens, a model we discard at our peril), but if you dig beneath the surface of the constant pap pumped out by the likes of Magic FM & etc., you will actually see quite a healthy movement, certainly in cultural terms.
From South Wales, TangleJack are John-Paul Davies and Duncan Leigh, and they contacted me flagging up their album, Ragged Edge which is released on May 30th. Their Bandcamp page is at https://tanglejack.bandcamp.com/ and there is a pre-order campaign over at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-ragged-edge-pre-order--2#/ This work comes very highly recommended by this website. The lead vocals are very strong, the harmonising perfect, and its powerful story telling puts one in mind of classic folk-rock music. Certainly, fans of Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and CSNY will find much to enjoy here.
There are eleven pieces of music, and we shall discuss each one and embed a couple of tracks for your listening pleasure.
The album opens with In the Light of the Setting Sun, a song dealing with the heavy price we are paying for our all-powerful corporate consumer culture, but still marvelling at the beauty of the world around us and announcing (correctly) that the winds of change are beginning to blow. A fine clarion call to start us off to start putting down roots and build a community focussed future. In this, Leigh announces himself as a guitarist of some accomplishment.
The title track follows which I featured on my May 2024 monthly “Ruminations” video (Lazland on YouTube), a beautiful song talking of the massive challenges which face the old coal communities in South Wales, abandoned by the post-Thatcherite economy, but with an essential message of solidarity, and is worth the entrance price of the album in itself, full of emotion and connection to the heartland the duo are from, sitting on top of the mountainside contemplating what to keep and what to discard in order to move on, the final words cried out in protest.
You’ve Never Had It So Good is a bitter and ironic commentary on the shitshow which was Boris, Mr Wancock, et al handling of the Covid pandemic. Anthemic, referencing food banks, greed, corporate dividends, piss-ups by the powers that be during lockdown, the track is surprisingly upbeat in the finest tradition of community political protest, with a great singalong bit at the end I look forward to joining in with when the duo play Carmarthen later this year, and you wince at the Boris Pepper Pig broadcast. There is a YouTube video of this, and it is below for you.
The Garden of your Heart is the lead single from the album and was recently featured on BBC Radio Wales. I have embedded the audio below, a joyful harmonious folk-rock noise, guaranteed to cheer the most anxious and worried soul. Feed your soul with this uplifting compost.
Nightingale is another song dealing with the impact of our actions on the planet around us. As I write this review, as is common, I have sport on the television with the sound turned down. The adverts are on. Bloody McDonalds pushing their muck, loads more large companies flogging us wares we don’t really want or need, some quite sinister like the omnipotent gambling companies and the online shops selling cheap clothes poverty-stricken Asian kids have sweated blood to produce for us. Nobody protesting this nonsense is advocating a return to a pre-industrial past, but some respect for us and the world we live in would be a start. The vocals on this are gorgeous, asking the bird to share its song and set us free, asking sister moon to shine its light on us, wondering if the birds will stop singing. The guitar solo is as emotional as you will hear this year. Stunning.
Wild Roses follows, a very rich sound coming out of the speakers, the lyrics referencing the flora which has grown out of previously dark colliery scrapheaps. For all the misery caused by the loss of employment, this song and its writers are correct to point out that the return to nature from the ashes does make our spirits rise.
White Hats describes looking down from on high at the hell below referencing the loss of the eponymous headgear worn by generations of men descending into the pits, digging all the rich black blood.
The Players, Not the Playwright is embedded below. From the opening harmonica, it is a delight, sensitive and I think with some progressive sensibilities in both its playing and storytelling of a journey from the ground to the heavens, the universe and mother earth eternal, both capable of gliding along without us, thank you very much. We would do well to remember it and the fact that who or whatever created us is the playwright. We are merely the players (performers and portrayers).
Brockwell follows. The Welsh for this is Brochwel and there is a nature reserve of this name in Monmouthshire, itself named after a sixth century King of Powys. In its influence and impact, this track has the spirit of 1960’s Paul Simon all over it. Close your eyes, let this wash over you and imagine you are walking next to rivers, through glades, up difficult tracks, basking in the beauty of creation.
Draw Another Breath is the penultimate track, and I am told is a longstanding live favourite, so this is something for me to look forward to. This piece is about as catchy as they come, with its yearning vocals calling to the weary to hold each other tight, draw another breath, and LIVE! It is embedded below, a joyous noise.
We close with (This Is Not) The End, and I certainly hope not. I want to hear a whole lot more from these two, and the past few weeks I have spent in their musical company has renewed my lust for life, love for the part of the world I live in (despite all the bloody rain!), and also the need to never forget that being an activist for change is something you cannot, or certainly should not, retire from. This is a pastoral delight calling on us to follow and support, a bucolic panorama of the sheer beauty we all too often take for granted.
A quick word about the production. This album was recorded with Tim Hamill at Sonic One Studios in Llangennach, and longstanding readers of my music reviews will recognise Tim from his musical and production work with the incredible Three Colours Dark (Jonathan Edwards & Rachel Cohen). He has provided for a magnificently sounding record which brings off that difficult trick of combining clarity with the genuine warmth and personality of the artists.
The Ragged Edge is a wonderful creation, already a favourite of mine, and will be played in the Lazland household for many years to come. I am looking forward to seeing and meeting the chaps themselves when they play at Cwrw over a few wee drinkies.