Diversions Vol 4: The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake

When Molly Drake's poems and songs came to light they attracted some attention. There was a radio documentary, for which Tracey Thorn recorded Drake's songs ‘How Wild the Wind Blows’ and ‘Night is my Friend’. But interest was less in her work than the influence it had on her son, Nick Drake. This album changes that: what attracts The Unthanks to Molly Drake's modest oeuvre as a poet and songwriter, is the work itself. She had an eye, and an ear, for detail: the way fruit is arranged on a stall; fleeting music from an open window. She was acutely aware of how these small items and tiny events make up our lives, and was sensitive to their emotional power. We share with her ‘the deep uncertainty of the night,’ her unspoken sadness that while she remembers firelight and oranges, her lover's recollection is of smoke and dust.

Between her songs Molly's daughter, actor Gabrielle Drake, reads her poems so they, rather than her performance, speak. The clarity of The Unthanks’ voices, the economy of Adrian McNally's arrangements, mostly piano augmented subtly with brass, capture the tone of Drake's songs perfectly.