The Bairns

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-12-01 rating:
..... above and beyond.......
To tell the truth there is very little I can add that hasn't already been said by those reviewers more knowledgeable and eloquent. Most here obviously feel the same way I do about this music Still there is something about "The Bairns" that creates a need to share my delight.

I discovered this album as part of my annual buying of the "Mercury Prize shortlist". Suffice to say all of the others have already faded away into the background and pall in comparison to this exquisite piece of work.

I remember the Guardian blabbing on about The Winterset when this was released but did the shameful "folk: I don't really do folk" thing and ignored it. My embarrassment at that earlier narrowness of vision is luckily smothered by my sheer joy of finally discovering what I was missing.

Let me start by saying that I have never heard anything like this before. This is something above and beyond the term "music". It's an experience that honestly transcends everything I have heard and loved in the past. As you immerse yourself in this album moments of devastating, desperate beauty emerge, entangling and drawing you further into the overriding hypnotic framework and gently rhythmic flow that flawlessly holds this exceptional work together.
This is a collection of tunes that will move you deeply, sometimes to tears, sometimes to laughter. I recently saw them live (which mere words cannot recommend strongly enough but it is, incredibly, even better live) and was somewhat relieved and amused to see other people nearby wiping away discreetly shed tears.
It was "Blackbird" and "Sea song" that initially hooked me but it was "Felton Lonnin", "Blue's Gaen Oot O'the Fashion" and especially "I Wish" that reeled me in. Now I'm hopelessly and wonderfully under the spell of this towering achievement.
Do they actually know how good this album is? Are they aware what they've created? Can they possibly produce something this perfect again? I certainly hope so because I just can't stop listening to this. All other music has become strangely irrelevant.

I know little about music but I think it's safe to say what's so very special about "The Bairns" is the overall structure and the arrangements. All the elements that make up each track work so perfectly together and something that initially seems relatively simplistic reveals layer upon layer of depth both audible and emotional.
Like an earlier reviewer I'm usually reaching for the hankies before "Fareweel Regality" has finished and I'm at a total loss to explain why.

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review by: date: 2008-09-18 rating:
Stunned
We caught Rachel Unthank at Cambridge Folk Festival in 07 and were blown away. It reminded me of some of the cutting age post punk stuff (hardly sounds folk!) in the early to mid 80s, not that we can trace much of this but vague memories of Peel, and support groups to the Nightingales and Terry and Jerry (sorry I am indulging myself here).

So after playing the Bairns to death, and tiring of it a little, totally surprised when we saw them live again to appreciate how wonderful this is and to have to play it once again.

Brilliant that a whole new audience can now appreciate it through the mercury nominations and even more wonderful to meet Becky at the Big Chill, even if I had forgotten the camera at the time (hope that she doesn't think she has a middle aged groupie)

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review by: date: 2008-03-26 rating:
Samaritans album of the year !
After hearing a lot of good things about Rachel Unthank in the press and catching a couple of promising sounding tracks on Mike Harding's Folk on 2, I was looking forward to hearing The Bairns in its entirety.
As the finishing bars melted away, I had already lost the will to live and was furiously trying to remember how to fashion a hangman's knot !
This is really, really depressing album. Like June Tabor, Rachel U has a melancholic voice which is perfect for the moody,tragedy of the her songs' subject matter.
Of course death,lost love and regret are stock in trade in Folk music. Unfortunately,Rachel's interpretations makes a traditional mournful ballad like say 'Little Musgrave' delivered by someone like Martin Simpson sound like Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by comparison!
So many tracks sound like real dirges with a gloomy single piano chord counterpointing the dreary vocals.
On one or two tracks where The Winterset chip in, there is the suggestion of something rather more uplifting behind the misery but regretably, these tracks are totally overwhelmed by that bloody plodding piano chord and that lifeless Geordie voice.
Am I being unfair ? Possibly,as someone who is more a fan of what is now termed 'Nu-Folk', the finger in yer ear traditional stuff quite often leaves me cold. The Bairns is very much in the conservative tradition.

If people think The Smiths were miserablists then Rachel Unthank makes them sound like a Caribbean steel drum band playing Black Lace's greatest hits !

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review by: rich boden date: 2008-02-05 rating:
Stunningly beautiful
"So we'll cry 'fareweel Regality',
and we'll cry 'fareweel the Liberty',
to honest friends' civility,
to winter's frost and fire"

I brought this album having caught the above snippet of "Fareweel Regality" [Sic.] playing late at night on the Radio. After a deft internet search through songs played that night, I managed to track the song down as coming from this album. Whilst I am quite a folk fan, I'd not heard of Rachel Unthank and The Winterset (fantastic name for a band!) before and so I procured the album. Whilst "Fareweel Regality" is still my favourite track, the entire album is absolutely beautiful. The voices, lyrics, tunes and arrangements are all superb - highly recommended!


review by: date: 2008-01-24 rating:
Feeling Depressed? Buy This And Feel Worse!!
Having bought the previous album and found it patchy I bought this and found
it even patchier! To my ears, there're 3 great tracks and the rest are
dirges. Life is depressing enough without having musical accompaniment!
I'd love to hear Rachel Unthank address some uplifting tunes!

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