[ Jagjaguwar / 2 LP ]
Release Date: Friday 7 June 2024
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The timeless qualities of traditional tunes can carry us across oceans and eons, linking us not only to the past but to each other as well. It was under the banner of those eternal connections that the trio of Bonny Light Horseman came together. From Wisconsin festival fields and a German art hub to a snowy upstate studio and everywhere in between, the astral folk outfit-comprised of Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman-is mixing the ancient, mystical medium of transatlantic traditional folk music with a contemporary, collective brush. The resulting album, Bonny Light Horseman, is an elusive kind of sonic event: a bottled blend of lightning and synergy that will excite fans of multiple genres, eras, and ages.
From the first chords of the eponymous song "Bonny Light Horseman," the band's desire to create emotional intensity in open spaces is clear. Mitchell's voice rises with a fevered energy over a mournful strum, and the song comes off as a lament that's at once sad-eyed and hopeful. "Deep in Love" began as a Fruit Bats sketch, but after Kaufman recognized its uncanny (and unplanned) similarity to a certain traditional tune, the song took on new life at the hands of the band. Other numbers like "The Roving" and "Black Waterside" feature newly-written choruses sung in harmony-a fresh take on the typically chorus-less ancient ballad form. "Jane Jane" chimes along with a Johnson/Mitchell call-and-response refrain like some forgotten nursery rhyme; "Lowlands" sees Mitchell's silvery verses cutting through the instrumental's understated dynamics; and the record-closing duet "10,000 Miles" balances the sadness of leaving with the warmth of requited love.
Nowhere on Bonny Light Horseman does the music feel staid, or burdened from the too-tight fit of a stuffy Renaissance collar. This is colorful, textured work: a lush and loving ode to the past with one eye fixed on the present. Not once did the band feel burdened by the errand of a too-faithful homage, instead reveling in a sense of freedom to take leaps and liberties as they saw fit.
1. Keep Me on Your Mind
2. Lover Take It Easy
3. I Know You Know
4. grinch/funeral
5. Old Dutch
6. When I Was Younger
7. Waiting and Waiting
8. Hare and Hound
9. Rock the Cradle
10. Singing to the Mandolin
11. The Clover
12. Into the O
13. Don't Know Why You Move Me
14. Speak to Me Muse
15. think of the royalties, lads
16. Tumblin Down
17. I Wanna Be Where You Are
18. Over the Pass
19. Your Arms (All the Time)
20. See You Free