Full Review

Kris Delmhorst – Strange Conversation

Kris’ third album for Signature Sounds sees her drawing inspiration from the work of a number of celebrated poets, but rather than being a dry and academic exercise the whole collection feels modern and light.

All the songs are either the original poems set to music (as in Byron’s ‘We’ll Go No More A-Roving’) or have taken the original verse as a starting point and have built a song around it (Herrick’s ‘The Scare Fire’ has evolved into ‘Water Water’). Throughout the 12 tracks she hits the mark perfectly, and while the premise may sound a little inaccessible it works well and there’s some memorable and vivid imagery throughout.

Musically this is much more ‘open’ sounding disc than her previous albums, there’s a varied range of instrumentation but the more acoustic feel allows the listener to hear much more detail from the players and also brings her smooth vocals to the fore.

The principle of an album based on poetry may sound dry and indulgent but the results are thoroughly engaging – the poems of centuries past are as powerful and resonant as they ever were, and the interaction between musician and poet makes this a fascinating album.