Party: Woodpigeon & Withered Hand

Party: Woodpigeon & Withered Hand

Woodpigeon:
Mark Andrew Hamilton’s ongoing aural anthology - By Mary Christa O’Keefe

A Woodpigeon song is a container.The container can be a thing of lustrous, exquisitely wrought ornate delicacy, like a sonic Fabergé egg, suggestively warm and heavy in the palm. Or it can be a container for spectacle, like a planetarium, the elemental and sweepingly dynamic bound by a dome for human contemplation. Or like the magic pouch of Urdu myth, a deceptively unassuming initial presence that suddenly becomes a transit to exotic dimensions. Or like Russian dolls, one handmade effigy holding another within it, until the diminutive figure at the heart of it all is revealed.
No matter the scale or mien, each of Woodpigeon’s containers holds a painstakingly created story. These stories were made for you, dear listener, and for us together: the baffled and querulous, the anxious and road-weary, the wonderers and wanderers and worriers, the desirers and pursuers, the frustrated and deliriously hopeful, the keepers of flame and seekers of peace; for those embarking on the perilous adventure of knowing another or – worse yet! – knowing oneself; for the neo-fogeys and eternal children sealed in ill-fitting grown-up carapaces. For those fording their way in a world that is continually remade into an unknown frontier every day, anew.
Woodpigeon is itself a container, less a band or project than a repository for multi-instrumentalist Mark Andrew Hamilton’s aural anthologies of modern reckonings. His stories strike at the difficult-to-parse moods and flights of fancy that struggle beneath our quotidian selves. We are better than we are, they sing.
Post-genre in an orchestral folk-pop context, Woodpigeon embellishes with echoes from other forms and eras: a swell of remorseful strings, the distant rousing call of horns, an urgent rhythmic skiffle of frustrated ardour, textural ripples of atmospheric noise. But oh, the melodies! Those are the soul of a Woodpigeon song, erudite lyrics borne by Hamilton’s spooky bittersweet vocals – like the ghost of a choirboy teetering on the cusp of manhood reincarnated into gently rustling autumn leaves. Yes, absolutely.
Woodpigeon can be counted among contemporary idiosyncratic songcrafters like Andrew Bird, Damien Jurado, Jens Lenkman, Laura Veirs, Jose Gonzalez, John Vanderslice, Iron & Wine, and Antony & the Johnsons, and alongside fellow mercurial Canadian artists like Arcade Fire, Chad vanGaalen, Chet, Great Lake Swimmers, The Acorn, Culture Reject, Christine Fellows, Human Highway, and Kathryn Calder.

http://www.woodpigeon-songbook.com/
http://woodpigeon.bandcamp.com/
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The long awaited second album New Gods by Withered Hand (aka Edinburgh based folk-rock troubadour Dan Willson) will be released in March via Fortuna POP! (UK/Europe) and Slumberland (US/Canada). The eleven meditations on love, fidelity and transience therein see Willson’s songwriting hit dizzying heights: by turns confessional and melancholy, raucous and life-affirming; his trademark dark humour turned down a wee notch; life, in all its many facets, turned up to full.

Active in the world of visual art and dabbling in music for many years, Dan Willson came late to singing and songwriting at age 30, in a period of reflection between the death of a close friend and the birth of his first child. The resultant material, much of which went on to become the album Good News, was praised for its depth and startling honesty, and won him accolades from the likes of Rolling Stone and Mojo, as well as fans from Jarvis Cocker to Marc Riley. The ensuing years saw him embraced by Fife-based musical powerhouse the Fence Collective and his songs picked up by MTV and cult series Skins.

A prolific live performer, recent Withered Hand shows have included Pam Berry of seminal 90s US noisepop band Black Tambourine (who also contributes vocals to the new album) amid a rotating cast of musical friends embellishing Dan’s exuberant and original songwriting, alongside his fragile and uplifting solo performances.

Aided by a grant from arts council body Creative Scotland, New Gods saw Withered Hand entering a proper studio for the first time to work with legendary Scottish producer Tony Doogan (Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Mountain Goats, Teenage Fanclub), and features the core WH New Gods band: Alun Thomas, Malcolm Benzie, Pam Berry, Fraser Hughes and Peter Liddle. Guest appearances from a veritable who’s who of Scottish music include: King Creosote, Eugene Kelly of The Vaselines, and members of Belle & Sebastian (Stevie Jackson, Chris Geddes) and Frightened Rabbit (Scott Hutchison).

Across the eleven songs on New Gods, Willson deals with the big stuff: love, death, friendship, infidelity, road trips, stargazing and cough mixture abuse. First single proper, the magnificent ‘Horseshoe’, kicks off proceedings with its plaintive entreaty “Please don’t put a shadow on her lung”. Love and the fear of loss is the theme here. “Nobody you love will ever die,” sings Dan. It’s followed by the album taster track ‘Black Tambourine’, the purest pop song on the album, an anti-hipster anthem that jangles in all the right places. ‘King Of Hollywood’ details a night in LA with Willson’s friend and mentor King Creosote, Willson’s keen eye for detail as hilarious as ever, while title track ‘New Gods’ sees him transported to Switzerland, cutting across the fields at night and staring up at the Milky Way, like a huge ribbon across the sky, infinitely beautiful and humbling. This is widescreen pop music.

The five years since Good News was recorded has seen Willson honing his craft, building his audience and gaining critical momentum. The new album is a beautifully executed collection of songs from one of Scotland’s most gifted songwriters.
“New Gods is a record whose amiably DIY musical quality is perfectly matched with a lyrical tone which is at once tuned to a laser-like precision and helped no end by a voice which sounds agonised but still hopeful at every turn” ***** The Scotsman
“A triumphant return” 7.5/10 The 405
“Endlessly loveable stuff” NME 7/10

“Beautifully constructed lyrical frameworks … on this banjo-tinged brand of Caledonian gospel” – **** MOJO

“The UK’s best lyricist” – King Creosote, in The Independent

“Killer melodies … wobbly folk grooves … tunes full of warm, woozy sing-song charm” – ‘Artist to Watch’ – Rolling Stone – 2011

http://witheredhand.com/