Sea Song Sessions

All aboard with the salty crew of Jon Boden, Seth Lakeman, Ben Nicholls, Emily Portman and Jack Rutter, launching the Sea Song Sessions, a bracing set of British maritime songs and sea shanties that are as catching as a tooth-rattling bout of scurvy. Lakeman takes up the lead for a shipshape opener ‘The Rambling Sailor’, while Portman slows the pace for the yearning ‘Rock’n’Row Me Over’. Jon Boden’s distinctive vocals fuel the engines of yet more yearning for ‘Salvation Army Band Girl’, while Ben Nichols’ voice plumbs the briny depths for broadside ‘Jack and the Bear Skin’.

Recorded live over two days by producer Ben Hillier, at his studio in the Sussex Downs, each member of the Sea Song crew has immersed themselves in maritime song, and brought their own and favourites from the traditional repertoire to play with, including an instrumental, ‘The Good Ship Anny’, as well as a sprightly cover of Lal Waterson’s ‘Some Old Salty’. Seth Lakeman’s ‘The Lady and the Lantern’ is a haunting, dramatic highlight, based on a ghost tale from Cornish folklore, and closer ‘Deep Blue Sea’ has Boden leading the crew in a mournful singalong over the briny deep. Listeners may well wish a return voyage.