Written for www.7bitarcade.com
Straight from the opening verse of ‘After Me’, Josienne Clarke’s voice stands out above the subtle guitar tones of Ben Walker, but it’s the second track where the album comes into its own – with a stripped down working of the traditional folk tune ‘Month of January’ as Josienne comes across sounding more of an Irish folk artist rather than that of her Sussex routes.
This is a good thing though as Fire & Fortuneswitches between Irish-influenced songs and the sounds of Ye Olde England, as well as those written by the duo themselves showing there are various aspects on offer here whilst coming together to produce a well-crafted folk album.
There’s also a beautiful interpretation of the poem ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’ penned by Scottish legend Robert Burns in the 1700’s that the pair make their own, plus I’m always a sucker for strings alongside acoustic guitars and as such ‘A Pauper and a Poet’ provides another great tune with some rather splendid fiddle work.
The string section also provides the backing to the piano led ‘Another Perfect Love’, just one of many songs showing Josienne Clarke’s vocals at its most natural and as with the majority of this release lets the song shine for itself.
Given Ben Walker is the other half of this duo his playing is often in the background, providing no more than is necessary to accompany the lyrics, yet it’s towards the end of the album on ‘No Such Certainty’ that his classical training comes to the forefront, followed by a rendition of another traditional folk song ‘When a Knight Won His Spurs’ bringing the album to a close.
There may be a number of singer songwriters out there, and many a folk artist re-interpreting old tunes, but every so often something special comes along and although last year it was Bellowhead with their award winning album ‘Broadside’, this year it’s about Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker stripping it back to basics with Fire and Fortune.
