With repeated listening, an album that has a stunning impact
on first play may lose the ability to create surprise, but it’s rarely the case
that it doesn’t continue to impress and, if it’s been created by someone with
talent, skill and experience, it grows better with time and further listening.
This is the case with the double album Drawing
Circles by Nigel Wearne.
Wearne has created an almost baroque yet at times piercingly
simple – but not naïve – set of songs, chronicling seasons and moods, people
and lives. ‘Simple’ because his intention is clearly to convey his songs, his
stories, to listeners and he is determined to not get in their way, because he
doesn’t need to; that means no elaborate production, and very little
instrumental accompaniment. And there are elements of the baroque thanks to his
instruments, guitar and clawhammer banjo, which are the perfect complement to
his songs – as they should be, because he made them.
It’s rare to encounter an artist who writes, sings and makes
the instruments too, and that is no doubt why this album is so unusual: it
sounds so rich and extraordinary that it can actually take a while to realise
that it’s an acoustic production. Wearne is one man with an instrument yet he
sounds almost like an entire travelling show. He’s a troubadour who would sound
at home on an Elizabethan stage even as his storytelling is crisp and
appropriate for the modern age.
This is an album beyond categorisation although followers of
folk and country music will find much to love about it. The fact that it can’t
be easily labelled is a strength, and will hopefully help Wearne find fans in
all sorts of places and pockets
Drawing Circles is out now.
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