Clang Syne — Winterlands
It also feels like they’re playing directly to the listener and not just blasting it out through a sound system like so much weed killer sprayed over so many hectares of crops. The liner notes say “Performed live without edits, overdubs or outtakes”, and for once this is not a statement I roll my eyes at. If I wanted to sink my teeth into Jana Winderen’s music, I want to sit in the same room with this one and sip my wine with it.
Sadly, no “File Under” tag for Clang Syne exists on the packaging. What they sound like does not boil down to a single, simple label—they have the instrumentation of a light rock / jazz ensemble, and their songs fall right on the divide between improvisation and formally-composed songwriting. A number of cuts (like “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”) are straight-up songs of one style or another, but for the most part the bandmembers like to bend and contort their material around each other instead of just lolloping gamely along like so many metronomes.
The band also understands balance: nobody, not even when they’re soloing, blows over the other players—a big part of that being, I think, the appropriately atmospheric mix, which gives everyone a good deal of space and separation. They substitute interplay for loudness, and it works; even when the guitars feed back and wail (and they do, intermittently), it’s a complementary element and not showboating noise.
Clang Syne’s lead singer and guitarist, Laura Hyland, does the one thing I have long hoped more singers would get through their heads: she does not confuse volume with intensity, something the rest of the band also understands. She reminds me most of the far-too-unsung Sandy Denny—not just because they both hail from the British Isles and have some vaguely similar delivery, but because she uses well-selected contrasts (breathy vs. fiery, vibrato vs. non-vibrato) to give her voice character. She’s able to draw you in, and not just clobber you over the head. She’s also got great taste in literature, as the lyrics are adapted from, among other things, Anaïs Nin, William Stafford, and a certain anonymous 8th century Japanese poet who says more about love in eight lines than many people have said in a whole book.
A while back when I wrote about Gordon Grdina’s band and their album Breathing of Statues, I mentioned how refreshing it is to just have an album of music where there’s both adventure and compelling playing in evidence. Add this to the same pile. The milky artwork and packaging bring to mind a pearl, one that stands out all the more from so many other gaudy synthetic gems.