Tweed – High-Brow Blues (Southbound)

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First things first.  Don’t confuse this Auckland based Folk outfit with a Philadelphia band with the same name.  However, there is an American connection, with one American-born Kiwi and one recently returned from the States.  Nancy Howie (guitar) was a Kiwi who grew up on a sailboat, picking up her accent from a long stint in San Francisco.  Steff Werman (mandolin) was born in the States but came to live here at an early age.  Both are residents of Whangaparaoa residents now and form the backbone of the writing team, joined by percussionist Devin Ashton (Cajón).

Tweed make the kind of musical comfort food that’s both ‘more-ish’ and sustaining.  The songs have beautiful, simple structures which glide off the speakers and caress the ears with warmth and tingling.  There’s just enough to feel like you’ve been here before but not enough to feel complacent.  Written with many references to folk songs, escaping reality and society and a strong whiff of the sea they traverse the usual topics such as sea tales and shanties travel and fraught relationships.  Each tune has a delicate harmony, boosted by three voices singing in perfect unison.

It all starts cleverly with a little incidental music (Prologue) – just a few seconds of some incomplete theme constructed with guitars and Sarah Thompson’s cameo on the French horn before the first proper tune (Fading) which is a delightful moralistic little Celtic-tinged folk tune with all three singing and strumming frantically.  “One time I was a traveller travelling the world…” sings Howie, reminiscing about her sailboat upbringing, perhaps, on Landfall.  This one, which aligns nicely with Joni Mitchell’s style, is closely mapped to nautical themes.  Here Howie adds a little bass under her guitars to flesh out the sound for the recording but it’s a subtle addition and doesn’t distract from the tune.  Almost in Mexico is more Mitchell, with some smatterings of assorted 1970’s folk-rock influences and a nice duo conversation between Howie/ Werman and Ashton.  This is a story of a woman, a lost love and a lost opportunity – “Merely, tell me your deepest regret/tell me what you’d best forget.”

Shifting is the simplest song here, held together by a the lightest playing and more shared voices.  It faintly feels like a baroque tune, with just a hint of sighing from Sarah Rouse’s cello.  Then in the second half it builds up in doubling layers like a German Cabaret number.  I think Amanda Palmer would enjoy adding this one to her set list.    

The more I hear this, the more I love it.  Even the cute Intermission (more incidental music) has its place amongst these quirky, delicious harmonies.

Sarah Thompson is back on her French Horn during the compelling Lost, and Fiona Rouse brings in her Cello again to add more melancholy to the contemplative Dolphin.  The lyrics on this one are a little bit ‘naff’ in places (‘Dolphin, won’t you leap out from the ocean…What’s this human I’ve become?  I find myself in clever little boxes…Out here on the ocean, take me home).  The nautical themes of escaping civilization have returned.’  But this is a minor criticism.

Overall this is album, titled after a lyric from yet another song about escaping life (Evacuee), is all the more wonderful when you discover that this trio (with help from a few friends) have made all this Mitchell/Stills & Nash influenced music without any formal training and only a couple of year’s playing under their belt.   That’s pretty remarkable, I’d say.  I’m looking forward to seeing them live one day soon.

Tim Gruar

Click here to watch Tweed’s 13th Floor Video Session.

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