by Janet Goodman
South Wales folk rock band Jon Airdrie and The Shelleys are a little something different. With one foot firmly planted in the rich tradition of early English folk music, the other foot stepping into the new millennium, they give listeners a unique ear-bending blend of contrasts.
Their new album “Something’s Cooking” is, according to frontman Airdrie, “more playful than the last, musically and lyrically” and it “tries to fuse the natural with the artificial.” Striking a balance between old and new with traditional instruments such as guitar, bouzouki and whistle played side by side with jazz-oriented ones, such as saxophone and synthesizer, the record also gives equal time to lyrics that are wordy and cerebral, and ones that are sparse and heartfelt. Dark and serious overtones find themselves in between softer pastel-colored tracks.
The common threads stitching all of this together are the poetic nature of his lyrics, and Airdrie’s charismatic slow and theatrical, yet almost fragile, vocals. He delivers like a stage performer in a musical who is more actor than singer, edging one forward in one’s seat so as not to lose a single word of his message. Maybe it’s just the magical pull that a speaking Brit has on an American ear. In “Sunny Side Of Love,” his lyrics are simple, but when sung by Airdrie, they sound like masterful English prose: “Now his legs don’t carry him/In the spring he wears his winter gloves/But still agrees with all her mutterings/Warm in the sunny side of love.”
Fellow Welshman Dylan Thomas gives obvious inspiration for two of the nine songs composed by Airdrie. Many references are made to the legendary poet in “The Play at Laugharne,” and “That Goodnight” uses parts of the famous recording of his reading his best known work “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight” as a looped sample, mixed in with a jazz arrangement.
In “Did I Not Tell You?” Airdrie sings: “And the past no more than the weather/Is keeping you tethered to dull light and sound/Could this be the moment to rise, as light as a feather/Defying the ground?” The artist continues to float above what he’s done before. It’s easy to say that this album is an intriguingly light experiment in pushing boundaries.
Visit the artists’ website at www.jonairdrie.com
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