Album Review: Sam Lee, Old Wow

Sam Lee’s debut album, 2012’s Ground Of Its Own, was pretty far out there. It contained songs like ‘The Ballad of George Collins’, the roots of which may stretch as far back as a German manuscript poem of c.1310, and sported everything from jew’s harps to Indian shruti boxes. It also pulled in a Mercury Prize nomination. Lee puts in the work behind the scenes too, founding The Nest Collective in 2006,  the London-based folk club/promoters who champion everything from sea shanty sessions to céilí rave-ups, and he’s a serious folk song collector while he’s at it.

Accordingly, here’s another collection of songs dug out of the past, the difference this time being Lee has allowed guitars of both acoustic and electric configuration to feature, and they’re played by none other than Bernard Butler. The former Suede man also works the production booth. Together, they’ve crafted a thing of mysterious beauty. Certain types of folk songs have an in-built chill, so when Lee is singing something as superficially straight forward as “sleep, my darling little one” in ‘Worthy Wood’, it sounds ever so slightly sinister.

The waves of piano, stings and horns wash against the nature-eulogising lyric of ‘The Garden of England (Seeds Of Love), the drum and double-bass slap of ‘Lay This Body Down’, the saw of the cello in ‘The Moon Shines Bright’ - a song elevated out of itself by Elizabeth Fraser piping in with a verse and chorus of ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ - and a stirring version of ‘Spencer The Rover’  all make for a rewarding record. Gloaming man Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh adds his unique timbre to the lovely ‘Sweet Sixteen’ and the closing ‘Balnafanen’ is delivered almost a cappella in Lee’s baritone, a voice you could imagine singing to you tomorrow or by a crossroads as Chaucer scribbled a review, sat on a stone mile marker nearby. A marvellous reminder of the ancient, strange, and enduring power of folk music.