British singer-songwriter Nick Drake is often cited as a major influence, but his doomed romantic persona and poetic sensibility stemmed, it seems, from his mother. The evidence lies in Molly Drake's unpublished (in her lifetime – she died in 1993 almost 20 years after her son's suicide) poems and songs that have been sensitively adapted by that most remarkable of English ensembles, The Unthanks.
Singers Rachel and Becky Unthank, along with Rachel's husband – pianist and producer Adrian McNally – continue to stretch our idea of what constitutes folk music. McNally considers this latest piano-led volume, with its 1950s aura, their best work. Time will test that argument.
For now suffice to say that the sisters are in almost transcendent voice on these painfully honest observations of nature’s wonders and love’s labours, a tone in contrast with actor Gabrielle Drake’s severe readings of her mother’s poetry, which punctuate the album.
