By: John Reppion
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 30/01/2018
Label: Independent
“...if sitting off stoned round that camp-fire, drinking that cider
is a thing that appeals… maybe thinking about all those other camp-fires, real
and imagined, others have sat round before… well, “Forktail”’s a pretty good soundtrack
for that.”
“Forktail” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1).
Smell The Foxglove
2).
A Forked Tale
3).
Primitivo
4).
The Trickler
5).
Beast ‘82
6).
Wolves of Saint August
7).
∆O§
8).
Familiar
9).
Dronehenge
The Review:
Forktail are Simon
Davis and Boo Cook, and their self titled debut is an atmospheric ode to the
English Weird. Part soundtrack to an imagined film, part spoken word seance,
part dream-logic sound collage, “Forktai”l presents the listener with a kind of
micro-dose Psybient Folk Horror. I should probably use the word
hauntological too, just to make sure I get it in there.
The
ragged calls of crows and jackdaws accompanied by the thump of a timpani
introduce us to the world of “Forktail”'s
“Smell the Foxglove”; a calm yet ominous psych-folk sneak
deeper and deeper and deeper into the Old English woods. “A
Forked Tale” is a well crafted spoken-word piece
(written and performed by Si Cook) dealing with witches, magic, folklore,
history, and all that good stuff. The words are accompanied
by ambient church-bell drones, bird-calls, and minimalist
bass, guitar and drums which evolve by degrees into something more
trippy and drippy.
“Primitivo” is
a Neolithic camp-fire drum-ritual jam session with added fuzz bass that comes
out sounding like Shpongle on
ketamine. “The Trickler” is a wonderfully chilled whimsical
Detectorists dream-sequence guitar-soundscape, with a wassailing theme. “Beast
‘82”, the most unabashedly electronic sounding thing
on “Forktai”l up
to this point, pairs John Carpenter-esque synths and sensibilities with the
same stoned in a muddy field, drinking cans of warm cider sensibilities as
the rest of the record. By the end of the track the revellers have got a bit
freaked out by a noise from a nearby farm and are doing their best to quieten
down, but it’s almost certain that they’ll forget about all that in a minute or
two.
“Wolves
of Saint August” is
(the linear notes tell me) “based on a Transylvanian chapel field recording
by Monica Lucia Madas a.k.a. Monooka who improvised the vocals live in situ”.
Spacious church ambience and beautifully sacred sounding vocalisations are
chopped up and remixed into something that sounds not unlike Portishead joined in
the studio by a pack of wolves. “∆O§” (AOS) is built around a
sample of modern-day writer/magician Alan Moore talking about the work of 20th century
artist/occultist Austin Osman Spare. The nature of magic and art, and art
as magic. What begins as quite subtle musical accompaniment
builds and builds into a laid-back bass driven slice of Trip-Hop.
“Familiar” is
the track most deserving of the Folk Horror tag on the record, with an air of
menace and malignancy which just mounts and mounts throughout. “Dronehenge”
offers a more positive and optimistic sounding reprise of some of “Primitivo”’s
ideas – its a kind of structured grounding ritual, bringing proceedings to
a close.
“Forktail” is not a
metal record by any stretch of the imagination, and is not even really a rock
record. It is also not heavy, or ever truly harsh, and in fact maintains a
pleasantly fuzzy-muzzy, foggy-headedness throughout. I’ve already besmirched
myself enough by using the term Trip-Hop in this review, so I won’t make things
worse by using Chill Out too. However, if sitting off stoned round
that camp-fire, drinking that cider is a thing that appeals… maybe thinking
about all those other camp-fires, real and imagined, others have sat round
before… well, “Forktail”’s
a pretty good soundtrack for that.
