Dorset-based folk duo Ninebarrow have ambitiously reshaped the past on a new record adorned with choral splendour. Five albums across a dozen years kept Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere busy in the studio alongside countless other ventures and career advancing activities. The pair’s sixth album is somewhat of a greatest hits with a twist. THE HOUR OF THE BLACKBIRD not only enjoys the multiple talents of Jon and Jay but the voices of two choirs - Hampshire’s Hart Voices and Surrey’s Chantry Singers. The crux of the album is that thirteen previously recorded songs (a mix of originals, covers and traditional pieces) open in the conventional way of their original format before layers of choral voices are weaved in injecting a sense of grandeur - both stirring and deeply emotive. The result is an innovative aural massage breathing fresh life into well-rehearsed material.
All bar one of the tracks appear on previous Ninebarrow albums, the odd one out being the title track ‘The Hour of the Blackbird’, which was a lockdown charity single. This was the template for the approach defying enforced distance by taking a bunch of remotely digitally recorded voices and melding them into a finished product of finesse. Five years later the same song reappears though this time the beneficiary of enhanced studio work blending the choirs input with the core skills of Jon and Jay. Fans of Ninebarrow can experience a sense of familiarity by comparing the originals and these re-interpreted efforts. They largely stand side-by-side in a state of beauty with a difference. Curious new observers get the double edged joy of part-conventional Ninebarrow and the pleasure of a lavish topping of multi-toned exquisite voices displaying strength in numbers.
Ninebarrow draw on many themes for their work from a broad celebration of nature to intrinsic humane acts of marvel. They have a penchant for modernising old stories and borrow select songs of personal appeal. Seduced by folk convention, they also deal in good old rousing traditional songs and the odd shanty. These have defined the narrative for the first dozen years of Ninebarrow’s professional music career and pull together in this new collection driven by the duo’s flare to explore and push the boundaries of what fans usually expect.
THE HOUR OF THE BLACKBIRD captures Ninebarrow’s mission to etch the joy of song onto a widespread landscape and exploit the presence that more is better when fine voices reinvigorate the texture. The choral adaption is novel and expertly crafted. The result is an embracing listening experience caressing the mind with cloudless music.
