Josienne Clark & Ben Walker – Overnight
Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker release their debut album for Rough Trade, ‘Overnight’. The self-produced album follows their ‘Through The Clouds’ EP, which was released earlier this year.
‘Overnight’ is their most ambitious record to date, focusing on
Clarke’s extraordinary voice and lyrics, and Walker’s prodigious
guitar-playing and arranging; the album features panoramic orchestration by an
eclectic core of acclaimed musicians, including strings, horns, piano, double
bass, and drums. The twelve songs – ten originals and two covers –
recorded almost entirely live at Rockfield Studios in Wales – serve as a
snapshot of the endless cycle of night into day and back again, morning light,
into dusk, into black midnight, into greying
dawn, and on, and on.
Though Clarke & Walker’s previous work is very much steeped in the the folk tradition – the two in fact won the BBC Folk Award for Best Duo in 2015 – ‘Overnight’ draws just as much inspiration from morestraightforward 1970s AM radio rock like Fleetwood Mac or Neil Young as they do from folk-rockers like Fairport Convention or Joni Mitchell