Sometimes the shoe fits, but due to unforeseen swelling of the feet or to the flood and drain of fashion, it doesn’t seem fit for wearing, and so for much of the time it sits alone at the back of the wardrobe, tossed none too kindly between an old Christmas sweater and a pair of leather trousers. And it’s much the same with Iain Archer: for the most part he doesn’t fit. He sometimes pokes out of his hole in the ground for the odd Reindeer Section project with Scots pals, Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat and even co-writes the occasional global smash like ‘Run’ for the likes of Snow Patrol and the band’s well-meaning nemesis, Leona Lewis, but for the most part he seems all too comfortably resigned to a box labelled ‘fusty, folk, and largely forgotten’.
Now some six albums and 15 years into a criminally overlooked solo career, Archer once again shakes the dust from his hair and crawls out of the woodwork. The occasion? The release of his new album, ‘To The Pine Roots’ – a gentle anthology of tunes conceived and recorded in a cottage in the rich mythological landscape of the Black Forest – a wooded mountain range near Baden-Baden in southwestern Germany and most popularly known for it werewolves, sorcerers, dwarves and its clocks. Not that time seems a pressing concern for Archer or any one of the quietly ‘drifting tunes’ on this album, whose rhythm principally arises from the colliding arpeggios of Archer’s acoustic guitars and the fall and climb of his sleepy, fragile vocal. And if the whole thing seems rather casual then its likely its because the main bulk of the tracks – including ‘Songbird’ and the frilly ‘Mock Tudor’ folk-tune, ‘Hey Mia, Don’t Be Lonely’ – were written and recorded over the course of the same day, making for a very warm and open-handed record.
As the title suggests, ‘To The Pine Roots’ is the sound of dawn breaking, salmon leaping and fires crackling in the grate, resisting the customary pressures of recording with the same easy grace of winter resisting the spring, and as cool and as slow moving as the large, advancing ice masses that shaped the valley in which the record was formed.
If references points matter, then briefly consider a butt-naked Grandaddy dancing to a handful of old Elliot Smith and Nick Drake records in a Brit Ekland/Whicker Man stylee.
Suggested downloads:
’The Acrobat’ – An old creaking and blowing harmonium supports this chirpy tale of this gravity-defying character. Is it about Archer’s secret flamboyance or a tale about creative freedom? It really doesn’t matter.
‘To Mend and Move Along’ ~ Duke Special’s Peter Wilson lends his weary tonsils to a tune as gentle as a daisy and as strong as a spider’s web. Somedays its better to have people look straight through you. Lovely ‘letting go’ song that quietly erupts with a rainbow of magic strings at the end.
Iain Archer ~ ‘To The Pine Roots’ ~ review by Alan Sargeant ~ released 23.03.09