Conversations We’ve Had Before

With stalwart melodeon player Saul Rose and sympatico guitarist David Delarre, Eliza Carthy has hit on the perfect combination. They complement her forthright singing and fiddle, creating music that is spare, yet rich and adventurous.

Eliza Carthy describes herself as a ‘modern English musician.’ She is English – very – in her choice of material in Conversations We’ve Had Before. ‘Mrs Casey’, a gorgeous Morris tune, follows ‘Avington Pond’, a song she dredged from the archive about ‘mud plumpers’, men who dredged ponds and, understandably, drank a lot. ‘The Message’ is a setting of a metaphysically vengeful poem by John Donne. ‘Golden Slumbers’, the lullaby made familiar by The Beatles, actually comes from a play by Thomas Dekker, Henrey Chettle and William Haughton. Rose’s melodeon here is gentle as a baby’s breathing; Delarre’s guitar becomes a music box– it’s a brilliant arrangement, rocking like a cradle. This contrasts with the brio and velocity of the tunes, such as ‘Whitefriars Hornpipe’.

In some ways, happily, Eliza Carthy is very un-English: irony, understatement, restraint – such national traits are not for her. From the first track, ‘Knife in the Window’, a song of an amorous encounter in which the woman is an eager participant, to the final song, ‘The Light of Other Days’, a heart-wringing stark expression of depression, Carthy sings with the conviction and the emotional engagement of Jacques Brel. It’s wonderful.