Anne Lister

"Anne writes what are to me quite simply some of the most distinctive and beautiful songs I know." - David Kidman "...A highlight ... is Breakers, where the tumbling beauty of the metre so accurately reflects and represents the wave motion with all its rippling verbal and musical ebb and flow. The songs on this new CD were largely inspired by the stones and landscape of Beara, west Cork, and local myth is but one element, though you don't always need to be familiar with the stories to appreciate these sincere and evocative songs which celebrate strength in adversity and are (mostly) genuinely optimistic, positive and uplifting in Anne's own unique way. ... Anne has enlisted the help of just a few guests, notably Steafan Hannigan, to provide magical musical settings which are often suitably florid but never overwrought; incidental delights include the "wooden sax" and uillean pipes emulating the hunting horn on The Hunter's Fox, the tentative old-time feel of Devil in the Garden, and the many sympathetic fiddle contributions of Mike O'Connor. The inspired instrumental arrangements never detract from the songs' power or message, however. In short, this is a CD of real quality; I urge you to make Anne's acquaintaince soon." - David Kidman

Anne's 8th solo album forms another enchanting chapter in her personal storybook, carrying on her own well-established tradition of crafted singer-songwriterdom. Anne's stock-in-trade remains ever-fascinating tales sourced from true stories or folk myths / legends; additionally this time, four of her own songs are drawn directly from experiences recounted to Anne during story-telling workshops which she ran in prisons. Compelling accounts of supernatural occurrences and beings co-exist with the poignant story of Irving Pollard of Coventry and the telling examination of issues such as suicide, drug addiction and incarceration. Although couched in her now familiar beautifully melodious compositional idiom, the new songs comprise probably Anne's most varied set to date purely in terms of subject matter and inspiration, while at the same time the simple yet intense poetry of her writing has seldom been more captivating. Hers has always been a strongly individual artistic voice although the astute may well sense, particularly in the compassion of her philosophical stance, a kinship with the work of Leon Rosselson, Maggie Holland and even Ralph McTell. Musically, Anne's skilled at reworking the forms, patterns and resonance of traditional song: several of the new songs contain more than subliminal echoes of time-honoured melodic contours - The Horseman Of Ceunant Y Cyffdy recalls The Prickly Bush and White Powder recalls When I Was On Horseback while the charming opener Little Polly Williams trips lightly to a courtly variant of Speed The Plough. Finally, How To Stand Still and Stone Circles are revisits of songs that originally graced the lovely 1987 Anonyma LP Burnt Feathers, surely a candidate for reissue), and it says much for the consistency of Anne's writing that they stand up so well today. On each track (save for the a cappella White Powder), she employs up to three accompanying musicians, hand-picked from the pool of Mike O'Connor (fiddle, concertina), Matt Crum (keyboards, saxes, melodeon), Jo Freya (clarinet, harmonies), Jacey Bedford (harmonies) and multi-skilled long-term collaborator Steafan Hannigan; the album's sympathetically produced by Brian Bedford. Once again, Anne's weaved a brilliant tapestry of insightful and atmospheric songs. - David Kidman, FRoots