They’ve got a fresh spark fuelled by a reservoir of moving, tried and true folk sounds
Brown Horse has just begun its UK tour in Glasgow; they will play up and down the country before finishing off in Dublin in May. Holy smokes (as they repeat in one of their unreleased songs), catch them while you can! This sextet is fresh out of Norwich, where they met and recorded their debut album, ‘Reservoir’.
While they are ripe with a unique zest, they thoughtfully and openly pull from a reservoir of 60s and 90s folk influences.
The lead singer, Patrick Turner, attributed their main inspiration to 90s alt-grunge rock, especially Lucinda Willians and Uncle Tupelo. They certainly deliver in spades in ‘Bloodstain’. But the harmony of his voice alongside Phoebe Troup’s, also guitarist, creates a haunting, electrifying new sound that I can still feel vibrating in my head. Their sound is underpinned by an instrumental depth, thanks to an array of instruments and all of their visible musicality.
Never before have I seen a pedal steel guitar take the stage, let alone centre stage. Imagine two, bodiless guitar necks lying side-by-side on a rectangular stool. I have to say this alone convinced me of their individuality. The advent of this instrument in the 1950s propelled country music in the US, in the same way it grounded Brown Horse last night, and certainly focused my gaze. An accordion and an electric piano took the stage at different points, showcasing the versatility of the individual bandmates.
Their sound, too, traversed through fields of sorrow, but would then spring you into the clouds, much like the smoky, comforting orange ones on their album cover. This journey reminds me of Gene Clark’s in his album ‘No Other’, which similarly floats above an ocean brimming with country strings and piano.
Throughout the set, the lead singer emphasised the teamwork that went into all the songwriting. Their united front was tangible; they would exchange knowing, humble smiles between songs. They knew they were making us feel.
Halfway through the set, an audience member clearly quite familiar with their discography, shouted, ‘play that one with Elvis’! The band seemed a little thrown – still in the early days of playing for a standing, animated room, they admitted – but knew exactly what he meant. They proceeded to serenade us with an homage to Paul Gilley, an underappreciated 50s folk singer and songwriter and member of the 27-club. The piercing, repeated lyric goes, ‘if Paul Gilley wrote the words to the saddest song that Elvis ever heard, how come no one knows this is the loneliness in the singing of the birds’. Little did I know, the much covered ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’, was written by a man who is a nobody for many. Brown Horse’s aching lyrics and harmonies remind us who unwittingly laid the groundwork for the sounds that ground us, while soaring above to reflect on a loneliness that rings bitterly true today.
While briefly allowing yourself to wallow with them and maybe even cry alongside the fiddle in ‘Sunfisher’, their energy somehow leaves you with an impetus to ‘Shoot Back’.
If you can’t make one of their shows, which I would highly recommend – just to see a pedal steel guitar – and feel the intense affection they have for their music and each other, be sure to listen to their album in full. It’s a ‘Silver Bullet’ for even a sliver of sorrow.