Defying the isolation imposed by the pandemic, Global Music Match is a project that connects musicians from different countries via the internet. Hence this happy confluence of folkies, who wrote together via Zoom for two years before recording Unanswered at a remote Icelandic “art farm”. Derby’s Lucy Ward, Montreal’s Adyn Townes and northern Iceland’s Svavar Knútur are all feted singer-songwriters in their homelands, but their collective rapport is still a surprise, whether it’s on close vocal harmonies or subject matter. Gentle romantic melancholia is the keynote, though it takes unexpected shapes. Ward’s Astronaut is a conversation between two former lovers, one earthbound, the other “drifting in the darkest of dark”. Townes’s Seasons is an imaginary love song by Johnny Cash to his recently deceased wife, June Carter (“we were magic”), while Knútur’s Isn’t It Funny melds sorrow with Nordic elves.
Steve MacLachlan’s production also helps rescue the record from despondency, adding drums, bass and violins to some tracks and bringing the spectral atmospheres of the deep north to Aurora and the title track, the tale of a disconnected telephone that sometimes rings (“they’re calling again from 1945”), while Orgar Brim revives an antique poem by a fabled fisherwoman. An unusual, captivating creation.
Ward Knútur Townes tour the UK, 13 October-26 November, with a live stream of their opening gig in Derby on 13 October
