Hard to believe that Stick In The Wheel‘s excellent new album A Thousand Pokes is, strictly speaking, only their fourth. Since 2020’s Hold Fast there’s been a steady stream of short form experimental releases exploring electronics, collaborations, a live in the studio set, and remixing both their own and others work. Consistent in their variety these releases are an ongoing conversation often exploring different approaches to the same material. On first listen A Thousand Pokes returns to the raw edged folk with which they made their name. Stripped back instrumentation paired to punchy structural minimalism for a sound that is both urgent and intimate.
Ian Carter’s guitar and Nicola Kearey’s voice are the centre of things, the glue that holds a diverse collection of material together. They do this not through a one-size-fits-all approach but a fluent and fluid range of expression, across the record delicate moments contrast with bursts of thumping momentum. The arrangements slowly revealing how their wilder experiments have been boiled down and subtly stitched in to strengthen and develop their sound.
A hidden thread flows through the first three tunes which roll into one another with a natural ease that belies their shifting moods. ‘Crystal Tears’ opens on a rising drone, the soft, steady vocal smeared by a hint of effects at its edges. It dissolves into a slowed guitar line like a leaf spinning on a stream, drifting into the abrupt burst of lurching fuzz of ‘Back Of The Hatch’. This is really the album’s scene setter, Keary addressing us directly in disappointed tones, like a weary friend in the pub, listening to us whine. ‘A Thousand Pokes’ is an elastic jig reminiscent of ‘Villon Song’ in form, the lyric has 15th century roots concerning errors in speech or text, a demon cataloguing mistakes and idle words.
While many of the songs wear their age in small details the tale of a car crash in ‘Can’t Stop’ brings us closer to now and has a musical hall gusto about it. The recurring use of handclap rhythms and cajon shine especially brilliantly on the wonderful ‘Burnt Walk’. The street cry ‘Lavender’ is a sad sales pitch, echoed later in the plaintive ‘Watercress-O’, while ‘What Can The Matter Be’ and ‘Hush’ are built around elements of familiar nursery rhymes but turn more toward bleak than cosy. Closing epic, ‘Steals The Thief’ brings us back around to the sound world of ‘Crystal Tears’ with soft drawn out notes, a more wide-screen mood and rumbling drums.
There’s a scholarly aspect to Stick In The Wheel, a critique of the ways folk songs have been recorded and passed along, the omissions and elisions of certain voices or expressions, but they never get dull or dusty about it. Digging through old texts and songs, linking centuries long human experience with the present their music is a rejuvenation. Along with a political analysis they bring a vitality and a wide ranging experimental curiosity. You can’t be entirely sure what you’re going to get with them musically but by now you should know you can trust them.
