The Irish songwriter and English folk artist have collaborated on Cuckoo Storm, an album due out on One Little Independent Records on March 8th.
Marry Waterson and Adrian Crowley’s album features 11 original songs and was produced with Jim Barr (Portishead).
The collaboration came about when Crowley got in touch with Masterson after bring impressed with her album Death Had Quicker Wings Than Love. Songs soon followed with the duo interchanging lyric and melody writing.
‘Undear Sphere’ is the first song that features on the record, a song first written by Waterson but which was developed in the studio with Crowley and Barr on double bass)
It was composed using the ‘blackout’ technique, as was ‘Distant Music’, written by Waterson when skimming the pages of a church jumble sale book. Marry blacked out parts of the original text until only certain words or phrases remained, connecting motivational words to create an entirely new work. Crowley had been working independently on a melody that just happened to fit her creation: a happy accident.
Listen to the song here:
Tracklist
- Undear Sphere
- The Leviathan
- Watching The Starlings
- Kicking Up The Dust
- Lovers In The Waves
- Heavy Wings
- Lucky Duck For Grown Ups
- One Foot Of Silver, One Foot Of Gold
- Distant Music
- Cuckoo Storm
- The Trembling Cup
About the album:
Crowley’s deliciously dark ‘Heavy Wings’ was inspired by the story of ‘L’Inconnue de la Seine’ (The unknown woman of the River Seine) – a beautiful woman whose body was pulled from the River Seine in the late 1880s and whose face was cast into a death mask – and features the plaintive sound of trumpet and saxophone evoking the soundtrack to Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold) by Miles Davis. ‘One Foot of Silver, One Foot of Gold’ was a line written by Waterson’s mother to which Marry set her melody. She explains, “My mum Lal (Waterson) wrote the lyrics, ‘One foot of silver one foot of gold’ as a tribute to the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Somehow these magnificent words never made it into song, so I picked up where she left off and wrote a melody. As I sang, a little garden bird came to the windowsill as if listening. I hoped it was a happy augury as a lump came to my throat and I had to stop mid recording to cope with the idea it might be her returning to say ‘what are you doing to my song, you bugger?’”.
‘Lucky Duck for Grown-ups’ came from favoured lyrics Waterson had jotted in notebooks on various train journeys to recording sessions and gigs, to which Crowley now purrs his way through in the final version. ‘Kicking Up The Dust’, a song about hitchhiking, harks back to Crowley’s teenage years growing up in rural west of Ireland. As he reveals, “As a teenager this was how I got around…and sometimes I’d even go across the country this way. Long periods of reflection went hand in hand with these solo journeys…the humming really makes me smile”.
‘Cuckoo Storm’ is a deeply compelling album. A serendipitous collaboration that has resulted in a collection of beautifully crafted songs, sung by two voices that are a powerful match. Waterson’s brilliantly distinctive voice is underpinned by Crowley’s rich baritone and together it’s an intoxicating mix.
Joining Marry Waterson (vocals) and Adrian Crowley (vocals, piano, electric guitar, mellotron, harmonium, music box clarinet, marxophone, synth) on Cuckoo Storm are Jim Barr (Portishead) bass, lap-steel guitar; Pete Judge (Get The Blessing) trumpet, flugelhorn; Jake McMurchie (Get The Blessing) sax; James Gow, cello; Seán Mac Erlaine bass clarinet; Lisa Dowdall viola d’amore and Rob Pemberton on drums.
About Marry Waterson
Marry Waterson comes from an illustrious singing family from the Northeast of England. She made her first appearance when she was just 12 years old on the album ‘A True Hearted Girl’ (Topic Records) with her mother, Lal, and aunt, Norma Waterson. Although there are echoes of her mother’s singular voice, Marry’s is as unique and daring as they come. Often collaborating with various writers, musicians, and producers, she stretches the boundaries not only of folk but of songwriting itself. Waterson has been releasing music on One Little Independent Records since 2010, with her debut album, ‘The Days That Shaped Me’ receiving widespread praise, including a nomination for the 2012 BBC 2 Folk Award. In partnership with the Barbican in 2013, Waterson curated a tour revisiting Lal & Mike Waterson’s landmark 1972 folk-rock album, ‘Bright Phoebus’, performing alongside family, Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley and more. Also a talented artist and filmmaker, Marry designed and produced ‘Teach Me to Be a Summer’s Morning’, a book and CD celebrating the works of Lal, released on Fledg’ling Records. Waterson collaborated with guitarist, David A. Jaycock and producers, Neill MacColl and Kate St. John, and in 2015 released her third album, ‘Two Wolves’, which was nominated for two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. This was followed by ‘Death Had Quicker Wings Than Love’, released in 2017 and produced by Portishead’s Adrian Utley. Her fifth album, ‘A Window To The Other Ways’, was co-written with award winning singer Emily Barker in 2019. Most recently, Waterson made up one third of Hack-Poets Guild (with Nathaniel Mann and Lisa Knapp), who in 2022 released ‘Blackletter Garland’, inspired by historic broadside ballads found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
About Adrian Crowley
Adrian Crowley’s powerfully emotive, complex and contemplative songs recall the likes of Scott Walker, Ivor Cutler, Lou Reed and Nick Cave, but the potency of Crowley’s rich baritone voice and haunting lyrical narratives, amid settings that alternate sweeping sonic majesty with ghostly starkness, is uniquely his own. To date, he has released nine albums. The most recent, ‘The Watchful Eye Of The Stars’, was produced by John Parish (PJHarvey, Aldous Harding, Sparklehorse) and was met with widespread acclaim. The album saw Crowley touring extensively around Europe and the UK. A song from the album was shortlisted for RTE Radio 1 Folk Awards for best original song. Since the release, he has recorded sessions for New York radio station. WNYC and WFMU. Legendary show New Sounds at WNYC, New York placed ‘The Watchful Eye Of The Stars’ in their top 10 albums of 2021. Crowley has recorded with artists such as Lankum, Brigid Mae Power, Lisa Hannigan, Crash Ensemble and Thomas Bartlett, among others. Adrian Crowley grew up in Galway and now calls Dublin home.
Album credits
Recorded by Jim Barr At J & J Studios, Bristol and by Adrian Crowley at home in Dublin
Mixed by Jim Barr
Mastering and additional mixing by Seán Mac Erlaine
Produced by Jim Barr / Marry Waterson / Adrian Crowley
Art credit
Illustrations by Andreea Dumuta
Design by Pete Manley
Photo credit: Sean Knott & Steve Gullick
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