Another choice compilation from Second Language and a fifth album from Songs of Green Pheasant shine soothing light into our winter gloom

With pandemic-mandated hibernations and personal separations for many people this winter, finding musical wares that can both soothe us through the dark cold nights as well as signpost towards lighter days ahead is doubly hard this time around. However, the two below releases rewardingly rise up to fulfill such a need.

Having delivered an assemblage of evocative autumnal themes with last year’s still-admirable Avenue With Trees compilation, the Second Language label is certainly well-placed to curate a sequel set that channels wintery atmospheres with Drifts & Flurries – A Second Language Collectanea. Once again rounding-up and intermingling existing members of the extended 2L family as well as bringing newer ones into the fold, this is a commendably cohesive collection. Revisiting some of the distinctive bucolic settings that characterised the enterprise’s earlier catalogue, a significant portion of Drifts & Flurries conjures up mindful mood pieces ripe for home fireside reflections or crisp frost-coated country walks.

One of the welcome recurring characters giving the compendium much of its earthy balm for short days is Oliver Cherer (Dollboy, Gilroy Mere et al.), whose Robert Wyatt-like persona voices Ghostwriter’s harmonium and flute-framed “Winter Remind Us (I)” and “Winter Remind Us (III)”, marshals Silver Servants’ sprawling almost medievalist “A Midwinter Litany (I)” and commands a stark solo-billed hymnal take on Nico’s “Frozen Warnings”.

Not far behind Cherer in stitching the song-based threads of Drifts & Flurries together is Amanda Butterworth (AKA Mücha), who gives vocal heart to a Statues in Fog mix of The Declining Winter’s gorgeous post-pastoral “Misty Bridges” as well as to Alter Later’s subtle reworking of Yazoo’s atypical chamber-noir curio “Winter Kills”. Arguably however, the finest larynx-led moment comes in the shape of Sea Glass’s sublime Low-via-Mogwai remoulding of Movietone’s “Blank Like Snow”.

Elsewhere, in the more wordless corners of this compendium, there are further pleasures to be found. This leads us to David Rothon’s slightly unsettling crepuscule “Bryn Glas”, Yumi Mashiki’s classical piano interluding “Applecross”, ISAN’s mesmeric synth-sculpted “Winter, Wraiths Skating” and P60 & J Luneburg’s eerie Return of The Durutti Column-meets-Power, Corruption & Lies pulsations across “A Secular Dance”.

Although ultimately, Drifts & Flurries doesn’t quite manage to vault the high bar already set by the afore-appearing Avenue With Trees, it’s still a supremely evocative and cherishable affair in its own inner-warmth-fostering right. Mutual fans of the Second Language and Clay Pipe Music oeuvre will find much to embrace within.

As an aperitif or digestif to such sumptuous seasonal fare from the 2L sonic kitchen, is When the Weather Clears from Songs of Green Pheasant. The solo endeavour of the Stockport-based Duncan Sumpner, this second outing on Galway’s Rusted Rail label – after earlier releases on Brighton’s Fat Cat going back to 2005 – is a gauzy and very winter-centric set, even if that’s more by accident than design.

This manifests in mixing-up shades of the hushed impressionistic ruralism of The Declining Winter (“Garden Hook” and “Sisters of the District”), the languid somewhat desolate delicacy of Rivulets (“Northbound Trains”), lo-fi reimaginings of early-Fleet Foxes (“Lucy Says”), reverb re-soakings of The Incredible String Band’s acid-rustics (“I”) and campfire hippy shoe-gaze (“In Very Truth”). Worth the entry price alone though, is the luminous “Hello”, a centrepiece of celestial folk-rock loveliness, suggestive of a fictitious post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd era wherein Richard Wright had taken charge, instead of the tension-fuelled co-leadership of Roger Waters and David Gilmour.

Whilst it won’t set the world alight, When the Weather Clears exudes an inviting thawing glow to brighten up our currently unavoidable gloominess.

Adrian
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