IAIN ARCHER
NEW ALBUM - TO THE PINE ROOTS
RELEASED ON 23rd MARCH ON BLACK RECORDS
Conceived and recorded in a cottage by the Black Forest and imbued with the voices and performances of friends and family, To The Pine Roots is the new album from Iain Archer, released on Black Records on 23rd March.
To The Pines Roots is an ethereal album, recorded at the point of writing and humming with imperceptible sounds. The whisper of instantly recalled melodies, the burring of an age-old harmonium, the ghostly reverb of pinewood walls and escapist rhythms teased from an acoustic guitar, distantly recalling a Celtic past.
Iain Archer is a songwriter of the forever-enigmatic mould. Unencumbered by musical trends and time constraints, he waits for the songs to find him. Here are the songs arrived at and visited by, not contrived or conspired but borne of liberated songwriting instinct. Within a simple framework of sparse arrangement and leading rhythms, forged over 3 months of visits to Schwarzwald Germany, Archer jumps from one songwriting muse and ruse to another, with the seamless coherent thread of a rare and oft overlooked songwriting talent.
From the hazy recollections of childhood he draws vivid the scenes of Black Mountain Quarry and Streamer On A Kite; with a playwrights gift for characterization The Acrobat and The Nightwatchman, pertinent metaphors for life and living; and at the albums core Frozen Lake, a steepling spire of a love song with a fragile voice, buoyed and raised by harmonium and strings.
It has been a furtive creative path for Iain Archer, a restlessness carried from his formative years in the Northern Irish seaside town of Bangor, the child of a musical and religious household. "Bangor's a bit of a world of its own," he recalls. "Even in Northern Ireland terms. There's a certain sort of separateness. And I think that's why when you're a teenager there you have a real sense of wanting to escape, to anywhere else.
Written and recorded under Archers own steam, To The Pine Roots has already sold out much of its original pressing from sales exclusively through his website, a release typical of such a free spirited artist. From his early career with the mid-90s solo records on Scottish label Sticky, Iain Archer has always forged an instinctive songwriters path. Having diverted from that first solo incarnation to form the Reindeer Section and serve an Ivor Novello winning spell as a songwriter with Snow Patrol, he would make another volte-face into Flood The Tanks (2005) and Magnetic North (2007), his at first insular and then latterly expansive albums on the PIAS label.
It is a rare gift afforded to few contemporary writers, that ability to switch guise and muse. But on To The Pine Roots, in a cottage in Rhein Valley on the edge of the Black forest, Iain Archer has created nine supreme examples of the songwriting craft.
THE ACROBAT
There's an old German Harmonium on this track that creaks and blows in the most beautiful ways. The harmonium sits against a wood paneled wall in a little house by the Black Forest in southern Germany. This is where 'The Acrobat' emerged and was recorded in the space of a day. Each end of the album is minded by a sentinel. At one end stands 'The Acrobat' For him confines are something to be played with.
SONGBIRD
For some time the acoustic rhythms of Van Morrison's early work cropped up while I hunted for ideas, and I recognised them because they've surrounded me for as long as I can remember. For a long time it wouldn't have enterred my head to write something with such a carefree essence. But what better way to overpower a string of constraints than by way of the glistening conversation of the birds? I recorded this just after writing it The double bass and guitar rang well of the hardwood floor.
BLACK MOUNTAIN QUARRY
From my old home in South Belfast, when you walked out the door and turned to face west you could see Black Mountain. And when you drove to Dublin, as you left Belfast, you would see that about a quarter of the other side of the mountain is missing. If you let your mind run off with it, it sounds like a mythical place where strange magic could be found. I needed some strange magic. A dark place and the unlikely promise of reward.
HEY MIA, DONT BE LONELY
I'd just bought a guitar from the renowned Northern Irish luthier George Lowden, I started playing these chords for the first time. Some guitars have songs within them that wait to get out and this was one. Within two hours it was written and recorded.
EVEREST
In a studio in Deptford, Phil, Jon and myself started playing around an idea I'd had. In amongst the takes we found this one, with me mumbling some strange sounds that hinted at a melody over months the vocal side of the song emerged. At the finishing stages, Miriam's Mum and Dad and her brother Dan and his wife Lucy, and my brother Paul all teamed up and sang the closing refrain.
FROZEN LAKE
East of the city of Freiburg, amongst the black forest mountains is an icy lake. On days when the ice is safe you can see a Christmas market far away in the middle and distant people skate. The ducks walk around homeless. The mountains disappear in snowy mist. You walk out on the ice keeping a close eye on your feet, even though you know it should be thick.
STREAMER ON A KITE
I always think this might have been inspired by the names of colours on tubes of my dad's old oil paints - I invented some of my own, like 'liver-red' and 'beetle-black'. Never much of a kite flyer though A while ago I'd been asked to record a cover of Nick Drake's 'From The Morning' by Cally, a friend who manages Nick Drake's estate. Some of those inflections made their way here I suspect.
TO MEND AND MOVE ALONG
There are some belongings and once they're broken they're always broken. Unmendable. But you keep them anyway. i have some watches like this. Anyway, this song is not about watches. You can feel like you're never gonna get back up you've had the wind knocked out of you. You want to go far away and not be confronted by anyone that knows you. And later you meet people who are the same and even though you're sorry for them you're also strangely glad. Peter Wilson (Duke Special) features on backing vocals.
THE NIGHTWATCHMAN
He's quite unlike 'The Acrobat' and I like him very much for this. While the acrobat woos the happy crowd, somewhere over in the more industrial end of town the nightwatchman has only just started work. And what I like is that he doesn't mind. He's a presence. And the places where it seems everyone has abandoned are the very ones he tends to. He's a hope I have somewhere inside.