Rabbit Songs

A House may have folded at the foundations and The Divine Comedy may have dropped irony then upped and left for pastures richer, but Setanta, the label that has consistently brought us quality music from left of centre, is back up and running as well as ever, as these two wonderfully diverse albums prove.

New York sextet Hem have been steeped in traditional Americana, which in turn seeps through each of the 16 so-called Rabbit Songs, all built around the beautifully pure voice of Sally Ellyson, and the musical talents of multi-instrumentalists Dan Messé, Gary Maurer and Steve Curtis.

Dan almost bankrupted himself by self-financing the recording, including the 18 or so classical musicians who figure fairly prominently throughout, while Gary risked life and limb to rescue the master tapes from a burning studio last year. The end result is a slow, easy train journey through the heartland of American songwriting, with a nod toward a more folky Cowboy Junkies en route (‘Stupid Mouth Shut’, ‘Horsey’). Highlights include the mesmeric ‘Half Acre’, the warm ‘Lazy Eye’, the plaintive ‘Betting On Trains’ and the almost jaunty ‘Idle (The Rabbit Song)’.