BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY
- releases new album -
‘The Letting Go’
out 18 September 2006 on Domino
album preceded by barns new single ‘Cursed Sleep’ (out 24 July) *
http://www.dominorecordco.com
There are guitars, and strings. Amid the swell of sound and anticipation, there is a voice singing along, playing a part. More swells. Then the Bonnie ‘Prince’ intones:
When the numbers / Get too high
Of the dead / flying through the sky
Oh I / Don’t know why / Love comes to me
So begins The Letting Go. And so we realize how much we’ve missed Bonny since the last time, whenever it was. It’s always a fine moment to hear from him again.
Through the years and the shape-shifts of different albums, players and songs, the music of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has proven to be an experience of sharing: Bonny sharing the songs with musicians for a new experience; Bonny sharing the record with you. What do you think?
The Letting Go is an overwhelming undertaking. As mentioned, there are strings-lovely charts that do so much more than just trace chord changes up and down the neck. Arrangements by Ryder McNair and Nico Muhly are threaded throughout the record, augmenting a simple quintet of players to provide a sixth sense. The deceptive nature of his band is on display from the top. ‘Filthy’ Jim White is known far and wide for his resource behind the drum kit and he proves it song after song, with sensitivity that provokes dynamic variety from skins, an acoustic depth to the room. Paul Oldham’s bass is a feeling accompaniment to Bonny’s guitar, played with brotherly clairvoyance and constancy. Young Emmett Kelly’s clean electric guitar lines roam within the web and suddenly shine, are blues and folk and r’n’b in shifting turn, guilelessly tactic and soulfully expressive. And up front with Bonny is the bewitching Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables. Her vocal flights on those records can hardly prepare one for the intimacy and empathy of her harmonies and other voices on The Letting Go.
Recorded by Valgier Sigurdsson at the Greenhouse in Reykjavic, The Letting Go songs and tales are garlanded by the honest efforts of all these *people in an honest effort- as said above, a shared experience, to be shared with you. Antidote and inspiration to life, love, loneliness are sought; laughter is desired.
After all this, a set of songs that are lovely and take their turn as favourite; every day, another one.
Love comes to she and he that wait. And while they wait, let ‘em know about The Letting Go.
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy “The Letting Go”
Cat# : WIG182
Release date : September 18th 2006
