In 2018, Kitty Whitelaw of folk-jazz duo Sealionwoman had just completed the dark, atmospheric debut album Siren with double bass player Tye McGivern, inspired by the Scottish folk tale of the selkie – a creature that can shapeshift between the forms of human and seal. That was an oceanic album, but Whitelaw’s growing fascination with yew trees – and a visit to Crowhurst’s legendary ancient evergreen – saw them return to the land.
Five years on, their astonishing second album Nothing Will Grow In The Soil arrives: exploring the role these ancient, strange trees occupy in our culture, spirituality and imaginations. Alongside this, Kitty Whitelaw’s forays into the deeper end of her register and the dark churns of McGivern’s double bass – complemented by a raft of digital effects – build a crushing, nightmarish landscape.
It’s a soundscape of swampy rhythms, loops and cold, abrasive drones counterpointed with more familiar ideas from jazz and folk – the sudden arrival of McGivern’s restrained bass-plucking in our premiere ‘Butcher’s Broom’ underscores Whitelaw’s beguiling, melancholic contralto as she repeatedly laments “Nothing will grow in the soil…”
Aptly nicknamed, Butcher’s Broom (Ruscus aculeatus) is one of the few plants that can survive under the canopy of the yew tree – its sharp leaves traditionally used by butchers to clean chopping boards and floors to clear blood and sinew. A fitting first track to upend and sweep away your traditional folk-music assumptions, welcoming you instead to a mesmerising magical maze. A dark-folk forest of an album that will surely take root in your consciousness.
Nothing Will Grow In The Soil will be released on September 13 2024 via The state51 Conspiracy and can be downloaded and pre-ordered HERE
