Customer Reviews

Swaddling Songs

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like most people, I'm a bit wary when someone says "Listen to this, you'll love it", but I am grateful to the friend who, knowing my fondness for the Incredible String Band/Fairport/Steeleye etc loaned me copy of "Swaddling Songs". After the first track I had to collect my eyebrows from the ceiling and my jaw from the floor. Forgive the hyperbole, suffice to say before the second track had finished I was online and placing an order for my own copy of this terrific album. I know nothing about the band apart from what I've read in the sleeve notes. It seems amazing to me that an album of such evident quality was largely ignored when it came out in 1972, especially as the aforementioned folk-rock groups were doing such big business back then. The music is tight, with Rush-like precision in many of the instrumental passages. Baroque, folk, mystical and just plain wierd flourishes abound (all of which is fine with me), but the real eye-opener is in the quality of the vocal performances. Comparisons with Maddy Prior and Sandy Denny are inevitable, but these two girls sing with an individual brilliance and frequently stunning harmonies which really make such comparisons pointless. Among the more gentle, reflective tracks "Reverend Sisters" and "Silver Song" are standouts, while "Dan the Wing", "Buy or Beware" and especially "Boulders on My Grave" are simply breathtaking uptempo pieces delivered with great flair. The whole album is hugely entertaining, and yes, I do recommend it to anyone with an interest in classic folk-rock.

It's amazing that an album this good could be lost to the ages. This was given to me by a friend who likes all sorts of B-level 60s and 70s music....he likes stuff just because of its 60s or 70s-ness. This album is totally not like that! It holds up as a great piece of work, not just a period piece. It's every bit as good as the best of Fairport Convention or Sandy Denny or even early Yes, but doesn't sound like anything but itself. Mellow Candle were, for one magic moment, the best group in the world.

Another lost treasure from early seventies.
Very unique music, specially the combination of the two voices of Clodagh and Alison.
I think that this album is a combination of Pentangle and Reneissance, although the music is less symphonic and less sophisticated.
The songs are well written and are like little stories with fine music.
It sometime amazes me what made a band succussful?
Why didn't that band made it?
I think the answer is complicated and not for me to define.
Listen to this band, inhale the soft voices and enjoy it from the first sound of Heaven Heath.

This is a work of art.

Imagine a parallel universe in which the Beatles only made one album - Sgt. Pepper's - and broke up. Now come back to this universe, in which Mellow Candle only made one album - Swaddling Songs - and broke up. You have the same sense of wonder (where did they GET this music, these ideas?) and the same sense of loss (over what-might-have-been) that you would have if Sgt. Pepper's was all you had to judge the Beatles by.

You might label the style as "Irish Psychedelic Folk-Rock" - imagine Jethro Tull, with Mary Hopkin singing instead of Ian Anderson, and you get a rough idea of the sound. But it's more, and different, than that. And the sound is timeless - it hasn't dated at all! This could easily be some hot, new band recorded last month.

This CD went straight to my "Desert Island" collection, along with the Left Banke, Mary Hopkin, and Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man. If you like any of those artists, or Pentangle, or Nick Drake, you owe it to yourself to listen to Mellow Candle! I can't believe I'd never even heard of them until the Amazon "People who bought this also bought . . " feature suggested this CD. (Thanks, Amazon!) What a find!

Like most people, I'm a bit wary when someone says "listen to this, you'll love it", but I am grateful to the friend who, knowing my fondness for the Incredible String Band/Fairport/Steeleye etc loaned me a copy of "Swaddling Songs". After the first track I had to collect my eyebrows from the ceiling and my jaw from the floor. Forgive the hyperbole, suffice to say before the second track had finished I was online and placing an order for my own copy of this terrific album. I know nothing about the band apart from what I've read in the sleeve notes. It seems amazing to me that an album of such evident quality was largely ignored when it came out in 1972, especially as the aforementioned folk-rock groups were doing such big business back then. The music is tight, with Rush-like precision in many of the instrumental passages. Baroque, folk mystical and just plain wierd flourishes abound (all of which is fine with me), but the real eye-opener is the quality of the vocal performances. Comparisons with Maddy Prior and Sandy Denny are inevitable, but these two girls sing with an individual brilliance and frequently stunning harmonies which really make such comparisons pointless. Among the more gentle, reflective tracks "Reverend Sisters" and "Silver Song" are standouts, while "Dan the Wing", "Buy or Beware" and especially "Boulders on my Grave" are simply breathtaking uptempo pieces delivered with great flair. The whole album is hugely enjoyable and yes, I do recommend it to anyone with an interest in classic folk-rock.

This is probably my all-time favorite album. An absolute gem. I love it so much that I have bought numerous versions on CD and vinyl out of curiosity and to seek a version that was the most sonically pleasing. It's clear that this featured brilliant production and engineering to begin with, but this CD on Esoteric really destroys that, sounding digital, sterile and so boosted in the upper midrange that hearing this at a decent volume will have your eardrums asking for a break after a few minutes. Digital noise reduction has also been used and, as a consequence, the beautiful "breath" in this recording has been sucked right out. From the moment that "Sheep Season" kicks in, you know that this thing has had the life in it all but removed. Why anyone would favor removing a bit of tape hiss (a reality of analog tape and frankly, where the breath in the signal exists) in exchange for this lifeless, sterile quality eludes me, but I suppose different people have different tastes.

In terms of sound quality, I advise that you track down one of these options: The See For Miles CD (SEECD 404), the old Polydor Japan CD (POCD-1903), the old the Edison Japan CD release (ERC-29223), the Acme release or the Si-Wan. These are fantastic compared to this version and the last four are all the same (this is probably the best mastering, a bit better than See For Miles). Compared to the Esoteric, any of these will be a mind blower if more organic, analog sound is your cup of tea. The release on Esoteric is the very worst version on CD (outside of the atrocious Japanese "SHM"). It renders the album a very modern, digital sounding creation, and really loses the soft, analog sound of the original.

A masterpiece like this deserved a more restrained, less is more treatment to remastering, IMO. This is truly a downgrade to the versions I cited above, and if you love this album like I do, do yourself a favor and seek out one of those versions for yourself.

This recording is referred to as the great lost treasure of British folk rock, and Mellow Candle as the "Irish Fairport Convention". I HATED this CD when I first heard it a few months ago, but I'll get to that ... Mellow Candle's Irishness is not really much in evidence. Steeleye actually sound more Irish and they're English. As for the comparison to Fairport, that is as good as any. The vocals are female, and that's actually where part of the first shock of the CD lies. The principal composer is Clodagh Simonds, but the CD leads off with a great, quirky piece called "Heaven Heath" by Alison Williams. You're all prepared for more of the same, but instead you get Clodagh whose style is completely different. Clodagh is not the least bit quirky and much more conventional. Hence the big disappointment. Anyway, I've now revisited the CD after letting it sit in the "junk" pile for a few months. Fairport's style, as you recall, changed quite a bit with the departure of Sandy Denny. The band got a lot heavier. I in fact like "Full House" and "Angel Delight" without Sandy as much as "Liege and Lief" and the earlier ones with her, although the sound is quite different. Well, Clodagh's style in some ways could be described as a fusion of those two Fairport styles -- heavy, but with vocals by Sandy. Now that I know what to expect, I like the CD a lot. The opening track is an anomaly, that's all. If you do buy this CD, do NOT read the booklet notes right away. The British have a word, "twee", which precisely describes the notes. They will really put you off, and certainly had a lot to do with the initial disastrous reception for the LP. Instead of reading the foolish notes, listen to the great instrumental passage at the end of "Sheep Season". (By the way, Clodagh later sang on Mike Oldfield's "Hergest Ridge" and gave Mike the title for what is arguably his best recording, "Ommadawn", which happens to be the Gaelic word for "idiot" misspelled. An in-joke between Mike and Clodagh.)

This album "Swaddling Songs," and the CD release, is quite an impressive album, and it has some of the most lovely and beautiful songs I've heard, and the two female vocalists just have wonderful and beautiful voices, and that being Alison Williams and Clodagh Simonds. There's some outstanding piano playing on this album, as well as good guitar work, but it's the great songs that really make this CD special. As their name suggests, their are some "mellow" songs, but the singing is just so wonderful and beautiful, and Alison Williams just has a fantastic voice. There's also some very up-tempo songs, and those are excellent as well. There's not one bad song on this album, and I can see why it's considered a classic and highly collectable for people that are looking for the original vinyl LP. The new CD called "The Virgin Prophet" is definitely worth getting to if you like Mellow Candle, and I highly recommend getting it, you won't be disappointed at all. I give this 5 stars, because it's truly a masterpiece in my opinion. I could listen to this over and over forever, it's that good. Glenn Signal Hill, CA USA

Despite the fact that after thirty years "Swaddling Songs" is less of a challenge to listen to than it would have been in 1972, it still stands as a most brilliant documentation of the childhood lives of Clodagh Simonds and Allison Williams.

Having grown up in the strict Holy Child Convent School in Dublin, the two women were forbidden to listen to rock music, but listened covertly to Radio Luxembourg each night. Only when Simonds began writing a succession of hymnal pop tunes on her parents' piano did the two lives begin to converge.

After several false starts, Mellow Candle began to record "Swaddling Songs" in 1971 after moving to London, when Simonds was only eighteen. Though apparently not many songs had been written by Simonds herself, the results were amazing even after thirty years.

"Heaven Heath" and "Messenger Birds", both written by Allison Williams (née O'Donnell) Simonds' longtime schoolmate, added a contrasting touch to the album. Retaining the hymnal flavour of Simonds' songs, they are nontheless much odder in their melodies and rhythma, especially "Heaven Heath"'s brilliant harpsichord line, but retain the accessible melodies and amazingly beautiful vocals. "Messenger Birds" sets the mystical tone of the album - remiscent in places of Kate Bush's work on The Ninth Wave in its tale of travelling across the sea.

"Sheep Season" with its long instrumental outro and "Silver Song" (once covered by My Bloody Valentine) show the typical Simonds style of haunting and atmospheric pop tunes, not at all folky in instrumentation or sound. "Dan The Wing" was an amazing drama about evil, beating Laura Nyro's Eli And The Thirteenth Confession or Kate Bush's The Dreaming for explicit imagery of the Devil. "Break Your Token" was an upbeat, festive rocker, whilst the amazing overlaying of a guitar solo and beautiful vocals on "Lonely Man" was worth the price of admission alone. The closer "Boulders On My Grave" continued in that vein with Clodagh and Allison repeatedly chanting "Do do do do", "La la la la" and "Na na na na" in perfect harmony.

The album's centrepiece, though, was the amazing, chilling, piano-only "Reverend Sisters", in which the women's beautiful voices matched Simonds' amazing piano line and lyrics describing brilliantly the women's strict religious upbringing and its effects on them - almost a taste of Tori Amos twenty years before the fact. "Reverend Sisters" was remarkably honest yet not a preachy attack on religion - it was a matter-of-fact tale that will always amaze those fortunate enough to hear it.

"Buy Or Beware" and "Vile Excesses" rounded of the album excellently. Because of the (for its time) very difficult lyrical imagery, "Swaddling Songs" never charted and would not have been warmly received by critics. Mellow Candle soon disbanded and Simonds spent most of the 1970s working as a session singer.

Nonetheless, the beautiful, almost medieval-like vocal harmonies in "Swaddling Songs" were and unlike anything else in rock. Though the album has been seen as a folk album, "Swaddling Songs" in fact lacked any normal "folk" characteristics and was basically pure pop in charcter. Yet, the medieval and intensely mystical atmosphere of the record makes it a true sonic marvel of beauty and simple melodies. Thus, original LP copies of "Swaddling Songs" have become a valuable rarity that stands as testimony to the music's worthiness.

i also didn't like this record at first..i put on side A hoping for some acid-folk psych kind of stuff but that's not what this is at all--kind of straightforward hippie rock...a few days later i threw on side B and was blown away by the first 2 songs "reverend sisters" & the one right after that which is GREAT...both written by cloughdohghg or whatever her name is...then i warmed up to the rest..