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Getting hold of a copy of ,Saunders Hollow, is like unearthing a little known private pressing from the early 1970’s, either that or a collection of lost outtakes from an acid-fuelled Pentangle session. Tanakh are a musical collective drawn together by chief protagonist Jesse Poe. This latest release is touted as a companion work to previous album, 2006’s ‘Ardent Fevers’, but the chronological truth is that it is more of a precursor, given that it was actually recorded the week before. Moreover, it has the substance to stand on it’s own two feet as a recording of able musicianship and versatility.
With psych-folk as the cornerstone of their sound, Tanakh fuse together other elements such as jazz, baroque, classical, country and acid-rock to form an experimental music that is as enjoyable as it is at times a challenge. Opening track, ‘Ladybird’, is a song of fragile beauty that combines earthy folk with a floating, dream-like quality that beckons the birth of a genre henceforth to be known as Folk-Gaze. This serenity gives way to the distorted-guitar of ‘Marcel Proust’, which has a jazz/ blues feel and features some nice male/ female vocal interplay, the addition of violins helping it to retain the pastoral vibe. However, there are hints as to the albums true vintage (it was recorded in 2004), not least on ‘Down’ with its haunting electronic atmospherics.
The album takes a more experimental diversion with its final two tracks. Firstly, ‘Kept’ is an amalgam of mournful acoustic folk and stuttering freeform jazz played simultaneously, an incongruous combination that tests the listener until help arrives as the bass kicks in signalling the band to spread their jazz-rock wings in style. Finally, ‘Illusions’ is a schizophrenic track of two-halves and sees an MC5 freak-out giving way to a macabre Comus-style soundscape; cello, violins, theremin and a half-whispered vocal bringing the album to an eerie and unsettling close.
So, an album that begins with a reassuringly peaceful walk through the woods ends with an ill-advised sleepover with the Blair Witch breathing down your neck. That aside, ‘Saunders Hollow’ is a musical backwater that’s well worth a visit.
RICHARD STOKOE
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