Reviews

Joshua Burnell
Album: Lend An Ear (Revisited)
Label: Self Published
Tracks: 15
Website: https://www.joshuaburnell.co.uk/

'Don't the great tales never end?'

'No, they never end as tales, but the people in them come, and go when their part's ended.'

This is a tale beginning back in the misty past in a land called Valénor.

Oh, sorry. That's a typo, I should have written: This is a tale beginning back in the misty past in a band called Valénor. A band, not a land. Valénor, formed around 2006 by brothers Ben and Joshua Burnell, with Dan Crompton and Nathan Greaves joining later, recorded an album in 2013 which so far has never been released. Work on remastering it began last year and is likely to finally see the light of day in 2026. But that is another story.

This tale concerns Joshua Burnell, who, during the Valénor recording realised that he wanted to forge a career in music. With a MacBook, cheap microphones, and an acoustic guitar he started recording a solo album in his student room in shared accommodation in York. The process was hampered by building work on campus providing additional and unwanted percussion, and also by Josh's desire to include a grand piano which he didn't have easy access to. A kind lecturer booked him into some private midnight seminars in a chapel in which there just happened to be a grand piano and a friendly soul from the University music department just happened to leave enough microphones to mic up a grand piano lying around, and his album was recorded partly in the chapel and partly in his bedroom.

His flatmates, after being subjected to a day of listening to an Irish whistle, introduced him to a local folk club. Josh had met a singer, Francis (Fe) Sladen at a drama group and realised that he fancied her and wanted an excuse to socialise with her, so he wrote a duet, "The Skylark And The Oak", and invited her to sing it with him at the folk club, and then accompany him on his album on that track and on his cover of Robert Burns's "Ye Jacobites By Name". The ruse worked, and Josh and Fe are now married.

Josh can't recall how many copies were made of "Lend An Ear", the first edition was 100, and the second edition probably 200. My copy is from the second print run and I have to admit that I love the album. Joshua was never really satisfied with the album. He was rightly very proud of the songs, but he wasn't happy with the way he'd recorded them, or the way he'd put them together. He describes it as like baking a cake with the correct ingredients, but afterwards realising that you didn't really know how to bake a cake.

In 2019 he and Fe re-recorded "Skylark And The Oak" and released it as a single, but his long term aim has always been to re-record the entire album from start to finish, hence "Lend An Ear (Revisited)".

The mathematically astute amongst you may have noticed that there were seven tracks on "Lend An Ear", and fifteen tracks on "Lend An Ear (Revisited)". The explanation is simple. The album comprises the new recordings of the songs, followed by an eighth track entitled "Thanks" in which Josh thanks us for listening to the new recordings and to his patrons who made it possible, followed by the original seven tracks recorded in 2013.

Before describing the new recordings I need to first mention how glorious the presentation is for the new album. It comes in a full colour, hardback twenty-four page book, with the lyrics and a full explanation behind each song, with the CD itself tucked neatly in a little pocket inside the rear cover. As if that wasn't enough, included are four, double-sided, full colour sheets, one side per song, with a full breakdown of the waveforms for each instrument and vocals along with extremely useful notes. For example in "Bilbo's Last Sing" the song is in the key of E flat, and he opens using a wine glass tuned to E flat, alongside a quieter note from a wine glass tuned to B flat, B flat being the 5th in the E flat chord. He then brings in a note from a wine glass tuned to A flat as the original E flat is the fifth in the A flat chord. I can also tell you that "Bilbo's Last Stand" was recorded on sixteen tracks, consisting of two tracks of cello, two tracks of viola, two tracks of violin, two tracks of piano and even one track with a piano chord reversed in a similar way that prog rock giants Yes opened their song "Roundabout".

No album I have ever bought has provided me with such detailed information. I am truly stunned.

This is no simple remastering of old tapes and it is not just a re-recording in an attempt to reproduce the original album. Each song has been completely restructured and Josh now has mastery over the recording process and access to many different instruments and the ability to play them.

Anyone who has heard Joshua's album "Into The Green" will know that he has a love of science fantasy, and will therefore not be too surprised that it was the realisation that the poems in Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "Lord Of The Rings" were effectively folk songs that first attracted him to the genre. It is also no surprise that two of these songs were based on Tolkien's poems.

Josh wrote the music, himself to "Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold", and took the existing tune for "Bilbo's Last Song" from Donald Swann's "The Road Goes On", though the arrangement is his own. For his 2013 version "Bibo's Last Song" he followed Donald Swann's version too closely, resulting in a song that was in a key that he felt wasn't really suitable for his voice. He disliked the resultant song so much that he removed it from the internet, but the song had already amassed 1500 hits by then, and two people had informed him that they had played the song at the funeral of friends.

The only other track on the album that Josh didn't write was "Ye Jacobites By Name", originally a traditional song, but reworked by Robert Burns, with the original intention of it being a protest song against the British. The knowledge that that was Burns's intention only came to light in 2024, a fact not known at the time of Josh's 2023 recording. The 2013 version commences with an a capella verse and both Josh and Fe sing throughout. Sadly, Fe doesn't sing on the new version which is a shame as I adore her voice, but that simply means that I will now be listening to both versions.

Both the 2013 and 2025 versions of "Misty Mountains" start with a capella, but the song (like Dylan) has transformed from acoustic to electric, particularly at the point where the dragon is referenced. Interestingly, during an earlier recording his mother dropped a metal cup which rang out like a bell with a clear B note. At the point in the lyrics where a bell is mentioned Josh makes perfect use of it intentionally this time.

This is the third recording of "Skylark And The Oak", the song that first wooed Fe. It still features her wonderful vocals, but it has turned into an almost prog rock song with the complex interplay between the piano and the strings, with six tracks of electric guitar panning from side to side like an oak branch swaying in the breeze. If this song does not give you goosebumps you are probably made of oak.

Glamis, pronounced Glarms, is a Scottish castle in which it was rumoured during the 19th century that the disabled heir was kept imprisoned by the Earl to hide the family's embarrassment. "The Monster Of Glamis", said to haunt the ramparts was no monster, but a disabled child. The 'cello' sounding opening chords were created by Joshua playing an acoustic guitar with a violin bow. The combination of strings and piano gives this version a truly cinematic feel.

Josh wanted to give "Midnight Wander" a 1970's feel, so he recorded the vocals twice with different microphones and then blended them together, a technique apparently often used in the '70's. All the string arrangements on this album were by Joshua, though they were actually recorded, conducted and played in Italy by Doublesharp Productions. Apparently in arranging the strings for "Midnight Wander", he listened to a lot of arrangements by Robert Kirby, a name I know as at one time he played keyboards for Strawbs, and when Strawbs celebrated their fortieth anniversary he arranged the orchestration for their orchestrated set. I can therefore confirm that Richard Kirby was an excellent arranger, and thus a very good influencer.

On the original album, there is an instrumental song called "Centaur's Jig". When you hear it you can envisage a field of centaurs all kicking their legs in a jig, so in my opinion, it was a very appropriate title. My musical knowledge though is limited, as, it turns out, was Joshua Burnell's at the time. Somebody pointed out to him that the tune was more of a polka than a jig, as a jig needs to be in 6/8 time. The tune is now called "Centaur", and all traces of a jig or a polka have been removed. The original was played with an accordion and an Irish whistle, but neither instruments appears on the new recording. It was recorded live with Josh adding two different guitar lines afterwards, so that in the final blend he could leave one chord fading whilst another started. Kathleen Ord played the violin, and from the waveform sheet you can see that the violin mic actually faintly picks up the sound of the piano.

At no point have I mentioned Joshua's voice. Well, like Fe, he too has a gorgeous voice. It is rich and warm with deep low harmonics. I mean, basically, he is a brilliant songwriter, a brilliant singer, a brilliant multi-instrumentalist, brilliant recording artist, I mean what can't he do?

The only trouble with him though is lack of space. His home is full of guitars, keyboards, mandolins, whistles, microphones, djembe drums, etc. that he doesn't have a lot of space to store CDs. His plan nowadays is therefore that when he releases an album, he will NOT make a CD version unless he has sold out of the last. In addition there is so little money to be made in streaming that he has made the decision to no longer stream either. Instead, his intention going forward, for every new album he creates that he doesn't release as a CD, he will make available to his patreons in a digital format only. I therefore urge everyone to sign up to Joshua Burnell's channel, and also to buy any or all of his available CDs now. Especially as later this year he is planning on touring a new album "Condor Keep", the title track of which is one of my favourite of his songs, which, so far, has never been included on a studio album.

One further thing. Any remaining copies of "Lend An Ear (Revisited)" that weren't sold by pre-order will only be available at live concerts. I therefore also urge everyone therefore to get along to a Josh Burnell concert.

Pete Bradley

Previous	Next
KysonPoint: Underwater Sky	Joe Wilkes: Hope In My Chest, Fire in My Throat

Recent Reviews

Ye Jacobites By Name

Fatea Showcase Sessions

The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.

Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy

www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.

Visit The FATEA Archive!