Music Review – July 2024

Although I left this place, part of me remains

(this is) very much musical psychogeography

~ Paul Newland

I have fond memories of The Lowland Hundred. They provided me with a soundtrack for the middle-teen years of the present century when I spent a lot of time walking the paths and byways of North and Mid Wales. A project of Paul Newland and Tim Noble, the name Lowland Hundred is an English translation of Cantre’r Gwaelod, a mythical lost land off the coast of present day Cardigan Bay. Their music evoked a sense of loss and longing and seemed to tap into memories buried in the very landscape of this part of Wales.

Clevelode is Paul Newland’s latest venture and features the composer himself on vocals, guitar, piano, synths and percussion together with a small group of collaborators featuring Mike Seal on bass and Emma Morton on backing vocals. The eight tracks of Muntjac are a meditation on the landscape of Epping Forest and the memories that area holds for Newland. Some track titles, such as Loughton Camp and Grimston’s Oak, refer to particular places in and around the forest. Others, like It Must Have Rained Last Night (Avenue of Trees), seem to touch on more personal recollections for Newland.

Memories inhabit the forest like fallen leaves, layer upon layer, year upon year.  High Beech summons up images of the wanderings of John Clare concurrently with East End gangsters digging shallow graves. Ambresbury Banks concludes the album and is an instrumental piece that is epic in scale and ambition and very satisfying in its effect.

Clevelode

Clevelode is Paul Newland and his collaborators. Newland was one-half of The Lowland Hundred, a critically acclaimed duo that released three albums, Under Cambrian Sky (2010), Adit (2011), The Lowland Hundred (2014).

Muntjac

Clevelode

Fenny Compton

July 2024

Compact Disc – £12.99, Digital Download – £7.00