DAPHNE’S FLIGHT - Knows Time, Knows Change
Fledg’ling Records FIVE020
I would think that it’s pretty unusual to wait 20 years for a follow-up to a debut album, but this is what’s happened – and it’s a joyful compendium of five brilliant female voices, with the potential for the best harmonies (realized in buckets). Christine Collister contributes two songs based on legends from her native Manx folklore, and these are revelatory tales I hadn’t encountered before. Chris While and Julie Matthews have contributed separate songs which may have been destined for solo efforts, but work well in this context. Chris While’s Heart Of Stone harks back to her earlier work, but with a subtlety of tone that leaves the listener breathless. Melanie Harrold triumphs with her song, My Heart 2, which teases optimism from inner torments. Helen Watson’s Let My Ship Come Sail In is a textbook demonstration of how to build a modern soul song from a well trod path of subject matter. The opener, Michael Kennedy’s Lay Fallow is quite simply a masterpiece.
The revisitation of Elvis Costello’s Shipbuilding, originally written at the time of the Falklands crisis in 1982, is another song that draws the listener in to an ambient place. If there’s one aspect that ties all of these elements together, it’s the aforementioned harmonies. So much more than ‘carrying on where they left off’, this is a venture with much more depth of voice and subtlety of instruments. I simply can’t wait to catch them on tour.
www.daphnesflight.com
Grem Devlin
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