It’s too easy to see nu-folkies as twee Vashti Bunyan imitators or Devendra Banhart feetworshippers. Joanna Newsom survives on her own across the Atlantic, of course, and so should Voice Of The Seven Woods here, a Boltonite better known as Rick Tomlinson, and a man who stands as someone with a bit of life, not too reverent to shout above the whispers.
Deft, gentle solo acoustic pieces build and build throughout the mostly instrumental 10 tracks. When the vocals do drift in, they’re largely echoed and phased, as if Nick Drake were falling into a vortex. All very beautiful and contemplative, it’s wrapped up in the really exciting stuff: full-on psych freak-outs with a 1967-recalling Eastern tinge. Turkish psych-folk queen Selda gave Tomlinson an electric saz, and if that’s not recommendation enough, we don’t know what is. On the likes of Second Transition and The Fire In My Head, he and two compatriots let rip with an Eastern fuzz that threatens to sear through your skull.
This isn’t wilful eclecticism – that suggests Tomlinson’s trying too hard. VOSW gives you a palpable sense that this comes naturally. If you’re looking to needle your mind a little, you know where to come.
