Alison Cotton - The Portrait You Painted Of Me - [Vinyl]

Alison Cotton presents The Portrait You Painted of Me, a new 6-track album - her first for Rocket Recordings (released on Feeding Tube in the USA). Like Alison�s previous solo albums, the touchstones of her immersive sound are viola, harmonium and voice, merged together to create a rich suite of songs.�Mumurations Over the Moor� is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of North East England (from where she hails). �The Last Wooden Ship� evokes the shipyards of Sunderland using droning harmonium and viola lines, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like one of Tim Buckley�s Sirens urging listeners to a rocky demise. �I Buried the Candlesticks� has a haunted, traditional feel with its dolorously folky viola melody laid across a thick carpet harmonium, and small bursts of percussion that sound like cannonade heard through the thick cold walls of a castle in winter. �That Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending� is a musical vision of Northumberland�s mining culture at the dawn of the 20th Century - labyrinthine, subterranean, dimmer than night. �Violet May�, the only traditional �song� on the album, was inspired by a trip to Vita Sackville-West�s Sissinghurst Castle. Its plot deals with a reclusive artist who has forsaken all else for a life of solitary creation in her tower. The structure and sound reminiscent of a post-modern approach to lyrical concerns dealt with by folk singers of the British �60s, but the actual arrangement is closer to something John Cale might have done with Nico on The Marble Index. The closing track, �17th November 1962�, inspired by nearly-forgotten memories of disaster with a fishing boat, a storm and an ill-fated rescue attempt. The song (and album) ends with what sounds like a forlorn foghorn cutting across waves of night with Alison�s voice again evoking the Sirens.As with its predecessors, The Portrait You Painted of Me was recorded at home in London, beautifully produced by Alison�s partner, Mark Nicholas, and it contains all the elements that result in the sombre, exquisite melancholy she creates. This is some serious and remarkable stuff.

Alison Cotton - The Portrait You Painted Of Me - [Vinyl]

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