Reviews
Artist:Dowally Album: Early Bird // Night Owl
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://dowally.bandcamp.com/album/early-bird-night-owl
Early Bird // Night Owl is titled to reflect Dowally’s different body clocks, Rachel’s late-night reveries and Dan’s early morning inspirations. The album shows the duo discovering what they describe as the magic of the studio, layering and building tracks to create atmosphere and build soundscapes.
“Morning” is a beautifully arranged and played tune. A touch of “In The Wee Small Hours” with all the atmosphere of Nelson Riddle and Frank Sinatra, builds like the rising sun as Rachel Walker’s fiddle and Graham Coe’s ( from Jellyman’s Daughter) Cello soar. The traditional “Three Little Babes” is a delicate triumph, two voices, guitar and fiddle are finely spun together. “Dark Clouds” is the sound of the weather on a wonderful instrumental that manages to be part Folk part Classical Minimalism as Cello and fiddle bowed notes mix with Daniel Abrahams’ guitar picking. As well as Folk and Classical “Dance Of The Swan”, with its passionate fiddle and hand claps foot stamps rhythm is alive with Cafe Gypsy Jazz.
Dowally play a visceral physical music that gets in your muscles as the fiddle, accordion and guitar pulse on “Geese From The East” makes being static while listening impossible. Traditional song “Turkish Reverie” is closely linked to “The Golden Vanity”, detailing the sinister sabotage of the titular sailing ship. Dowally’s atmospheric arrangement adds to the tale. Rachel Walker’s chilling vocal, the drone like fiddle and Daniel’s guitar build a dark atmosphere. “Two Sisters” is a piece of cinematic picture drawing, a Scottish County song, with again an inventive arrangement, sparse when it needs to create tension and full bodied to contrast. “Cinepizz” is a beautifully jazzy instrumental, a duet between Daniel on electric guitar and Rhodes and Graham Coe on Mandolin joined by Walker’s fiddle. An unexpected delight. “Back To Bute” is another nimble tune gets in your legs and feet, as fiddle and guitar and banjo guide you through some tricky steps in a set tunes. “Sleep” features that wonderfully full bodied electric guitar and some very 50s crooned vocals in a song lifted straight from a David Lynch soundtrack with its woozy piano. We start as the sun rises and end the song and tune cycle with a lullaby.
Marc Higgins
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