Sparrows Swarm and Sing, "O' Shenandoah, Mighty Death Will Find Me"
Written by Duncan Edwards
Sunday, 24 September 2006

This worthy attempt links traditional song, pantheism, and post-rock. Sparrows Swarm and Sing create vaguely apocalyptic beauty that is sequentially paced, at times cinematic, and ultimately life-affirming. They do sing, vocalize, and yell, with mixed results.

Magic Bullet

From the instrumentation (glockenspiel, cello, guitar, pianorgan, violin, drums, bass guitar) the band name, and the record title, it can be surmised that the shallow graves of brevity and song structure are about to be danced upon. "Across Canyons/Canyons" begins well with twittering birds and a faint lonely guitar and swells into an extended piece of sublimely simple Rodanesque melancholy. Reaching a crescendo around the 11 minute mark it then lulls and peaks pleasantly for another quarter of an hour or so.

My preferred sequential pacing and vaguely apocalyptic beauty is purely instrumental or only lightly sprinkled with spoken word. Upsetting then, that "Father Death / Mother Nature (PART 1)" includes vocalizing and, possibly, the jauntiest irksome yelling since The Past segment of Sudden Sway's incredible Spacemate depicted the uncorrupted exuberance of a band in pre-product mode. Naturally, a mental Cease and Desist memo was hastily constructed: You arent a mini-skirted chanteuse, a goose-bump inspiring choir of Bulgarian women in national costume, or Marc Bolan, please stop spoiling things with your wordless voices. Then, gazing at Jason Fiskes artworkwith anonymous pioneer, praying figure bereft of flesh, the lifeforce streaming out of a deer's eyes, and the moonthe realization dawned that Sparrows Swarm and Sing are uncorrupted exuberance in pre-product mode. Let them be. What's more, in performance the contrast probably works just fine. Either way, the initial guitar backdrop, the second sectionstrongly evocative of the epic yet understated qualities of Brokebackand the final one which fragments nicely into a free-folk-out-jazz freak-out, are worth the trip.

"Warm Blood Within (PART 2)" begins on what might be more like Michael Nyman's idea of a dynamic riff than Mogwai's, and slips into unsatisfying vocalizing for a while. Thankfully, Sparrows Swarm and Sing then have the good sense to pulverize all this with splendid cacophony and a long aching section of stately cello, violin and piano. Once again, all is forgiven.

The final piece, "O Shenandoah," borrows a refrain, for the origins of which I quote Barry Finn (www.mudcat.org): "It's been collected by Lomax, Sandburg, Hugill, Whall, Bullen, Colcord, Doerflinger, Abrahams, Shay, Bone, etc. It's been found aboard ships as The Wide Missouri, The Wild Mizzourye, The World Of Misery-Solid Fas (West Indies, rowing shanty, although collected recently by Abrahams, it may be as old as most other versions), Shenandoah (& it's many spellings), The Oceanida, Rolling River. It's been claimed as a river song a sea shanty, a US Army song & by the cavalry & wagon soldiers, a song of the Canadian & American mountain men, traders, voyagers & trappers. It's been the name of a few shanties, The Gals Of Dublin Town or The Harp Without The Crown or The Shenandoah, also The Saucy Arabella or The Davy Crockett or The Shenandoah. It's been used on board with the windlass, capstan, & winches for loading cargo. In the West Indian version, it was used at the oars while chasing the whale (Blackfish)."

All that ubiquity before Hollywood or Ken Burns got at it. Apparently, even Hyacinth Bucket, the overbearing heroine of the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances sang a line or two to impress a retired admiral in one episode. My favorite version refers to the courtship of a white trader and a daughter of the Indian chief, Skenandoah, an Iroquois. They happily ran away together but were caught, with consequences more severe than those suffered by Abelard and Heloise.

Somehow, Sparrows Swarm and Sing do "O Shenandoah" without sounding like an embarrassing 21st century campfire sing-along. Lyrically they shift back and forth from the river as metaphor to the chief's daughter for a few minutes beforewhat sounds likebombs falling in the night and an eerie super-amplified wine glass announce the return of vaguely apocalyptic beauty! More tempered vocals appear before we are treated to a great quivering otherworldly ending entirely befitting The Daughter of the Stars, and which could almost come from the work of György Sándor Ligeti.

If Sparrows Swarm and Sing ever want to sing, possibly, the filthiest version, from Randolph/ Legman's 'Roll Me in Your Arms' .. 94, "The Wide Missouri" rare traditional text:

"Oh Shen a do ra I love your daughter
Away! you mighty river!
I love the hole where she makes water,
AWAY, we're gone away!
Across the wide Missouri."