After my comment about the 'feast or famine' nature of the railtour market last week, things took a turn for the absurd. A total of three tours cancelled or redated, with the attendant costs of non-refundable accommodation and travel has left me seriously out of pocket, and unable to do the tours when they are rescheduled. This leaves me for the first time in years with nothing booked with my tour operator of choice at all - a strange feeling and one that left me thinking that perhaps it was all getting too expensive and complicated now anyway? In the midst of this, trying to reorganise things for a now pointless week away and to book things ahead of time, it was a relief to remember I had the second week of my 'drags' to distract me. So, today would repeat an oft-rehearsed trip to the North Wales coast. In the old days, this just wasn't possible in a day - but now it's pretty comfortably so. Having said that, I was of course on the first train of the day once again. A change at Bristol and onto a very lightly loaded Crosscountry service heading north, the odd chap who competes for my seat successfully avoided. A swift change at Stafford and into Crewe early enough to enjoy a coffee in the weak sunshine at the platform end.
It's hard to say how long this loco-hauled service will continue now Virgin have an additional Pendolino at their disposal. A vestige of the old system of swapping locos for the Coast, it was comforting to see Arriva-liveried 57315 trundling into Platform 12 to await the service from London. Noted that this loco had hauled me to Holyhead once before when Arriva were short of units. That day, in packed and overheating Mk.2 stock seemed an awful long time ago as 390023 crawled into Platform 12 to attach to the loco. I found a seat in a surprisingly busy First Class carriage and settled in for the ride.
The coast didn't disappoint, and despite reports of torrential rain and flooding elsewhere in the UK, I saw only a few spots of rain before things brightened and warmed up considerably. Having elected to head back on the loco-hauled service too, I had a little longer in Holyhead than I've had for years, so I decided to retrace my steps from years back out to Newry Beach. Found it much the same as ever, the rocks I'd perched on to read my Sunday paper busy with trippers on what seemed a surprisingly busy summer day for the town. Certainly an improvment on the windswept chill I've encountered here on my last few trips. Took some pictures of the beach and the ships before tracing the road around by the port and back to Town. It was good to be back in some ways - remembering what a haven of peace this had been back in the mid-nineties - when I could have a decent train ride, a cheap B&B and a weekend of solitude here.
Snapped out of my reverie to head back to the station. Another quiet and relaxing ride back, with the sun still strong over the seashore. There is more exploring to be done around here I'm sure, despite the rail routes having been mostly covered - save for the extensive narrow-gauge network in North Wales. Heading into my 'lost week' I hope I can find other moments of calm and quiet like this on my travels.
It's always great - not least for people attempting to write about music - when a record has a story behind it. And this debut EP has an incredible one - Rachel Sermanni invites her musical colleagues to a tin-roofed Highland bothy she recalls from her childhood to record some of her songs. She's not really sure who will show up, what instruments they will bring, or quite what they'll record when they get there - but somehow, through a chance assembly of people and place, these songs emerge. Listening to Rachel speak on stage about her songs, about writing and about what inspires her it's pretty clear that she's unlikely ever to take the simple or straightforward path when there is a more interesting one to investigate.
The EP opens with "Waltz", just Rachel's voice and guitar to begin - a simple, almost gentle approach as the unhurried accompaniment seems to drift self-effacingly into the song around the second chorus. Every click of the strings, every swish of a brush over a cymbal is audible in what sounds like an entirely live take. Soon, there is a lot happening - all kinds of instruments vying for time and entering and leaving the song, including what a bit of research indicates is a Chinese flute known as a hulusi. But, above all of this, that impossibly fine voice swoops and dives around the instrumentation - occasionally almost dropping to a whisper before rising again to clear, strong high notes in the chorus. A similar pattern of guitar and vocals starts "Pablo's City", and I'm suddenly struck by an echo of Iris DeMent in the sparse, honest vocal delivery and phrasing. But then things change completely - an unexpected swoon of slide guitar and some nifty jazz drumming send the song spiralling back to the era of the Charleston. However, under the bursts of musical exuberance the lyrics are dark and uneasy - "I have broken the arch in my soul/I keep pacing these streets like a hungry animal". A scrape of well-placed, achingly sad fiddle, and suddenly things transform again with a blaring trumpet solo and a ridiculously joyful tempo-shift. This is a sprawling, sometimes confusing song - but it's also utterly compelling and demands attention as it switches back and forth between a gentle ballad and a swing tune. In total contrast, "Little Prayer" is a tiny, perfect and precise minute of just a picked guitar and vocals. This is perhaps closest to how I remember the momentous performance at Homegame which held the Erskine Hall utterly spellbound as these small-scale but curiously literary stories were spun in front of us all. From the tiny to the epic, as "In The Hollow" closes the record with a return to the theme of dancing which opened the record - but now the dancer, uncertain and somewhat hopeless in "Waltz" has become a fiercer, headstrong creature. Perhaps the most traditional composition on the record, it's a final chance for the singer's voice to take centre stage with a remarkable and affecting performance. It closes with a strange cacophony of instruments, and you can almost hear the rattling tin roof of the makeshift bothy studio.
This is perhaps far from the perfect or polished debut record which might have been expected from Rachel Sermanni given the huge grassroots interest and media exposure she's seen over course of the past year. It is in fact a melancholy, often pitch-dark set of songs with few happy endings and a surprising undercurrent of frustration and discontent. Musically too, it wears it's imperfections openly - as instruments reverberate loudly in the uneven spaces of the bothy. Scrapes and shuffles usher in the accompanying instruments, which sometimes start quietly, almost provisionally before finding their feet. The building and it's atmosphere seem to be in the very bones of this music. But perhaps that's just how it should be - the EP documents a special night, a step along the road for an incredible talent who is still exploring possibilities. Seeing where Rachel takes this next is going to be an intriguing, and I suspect far from straightforward journey.
"The Bothy Sessions" is available on a limited edition of 750 signed CDs via Blue Apple Music.
Rachel Sermanni - Pablo's City
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
