CD Feature/ Fovea Hex: "Bloom"

You're lured closer by sweet melodies and hypnotized by wonderously enigmatic words.

When does one become a legend? Clodagh Simonds has been a folk singer since the 70s, worked with Mike Oldfield on the dark and secluded psychedelic trip “Ommadawn” and found herself in the spotlight again as both her own recordings and cover versions attracted renewed attention over the last few years. Her past achievments justify a place among the great. With “Bloom”, she sets out both to defend that position as well as to take a bold step towards a new and exciting future.

When does one become a legend? Sometimes, this can be measured by the amount of equally legendary collaborators involved in one’s current projects. And there’s plenty of those on this only seventeen minute long EP, the first out of a series of three: Brian Eno plays Bass (and contributes vocals) on “Don’t these Windows open?”, Hollywood soundtrack composer Carter Burwell delivers a dose of “disappeared piano”, Roger Eno joins Simonds for a Harmonium-duett in the brooding closing-track “That River” and The Hafler Trio’s Andrew McKenzie contributes “12-Strings & Organic Matters”. More impressive than this list, still, is the fact that this renowned personnel is merely a sidenote to the proceedings on “Bloom”- this disc carries Simonds’ handewriting more distinctly than ever. Instruments have passed into a shadow world, surviving only as Kirlian Camera-snapshots. Beat, rhythm and the usual pulse of time have withdrawn, shied away by the light of the pale full moon. The only recognisably human component is Clodagh’s voice, almost surreal and recorded hardly without effect, pervading the plumes of harmonious smoke and polyphonic choral ghost lights. Almost unnoticed, the listener is drawn into her recitation, lured closer by her sweet melodies and hypnotized by these wonderously enigmatic words: “Way down beaneat the battlefield, Down there beside the fire/ Deep down at the very heart of it/ As we sleep, you bloom.”

It is at this moment of highest intensity, that one fully realizes how irrelevant all this fame-talk really is. I’ll admit it straight away: I had never before heard of Clodagh Simonds and her past glory. Maybe you haven’t either. An important part of “Bloom” is that you don’t have to. On this record, she has refused to simply rest on her laurels and redefined herself within a new cosmos, which is just as much her own as folk music once was. If you really want, you can call her a legend for that.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Die Stadt Records
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