Scorn
The Water Chorus
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0:00/5:18
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The Rocks Of Bawn 5:000:00/5:00
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Willie's Wife 3:360:00/3:36
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0:00/3:56
Music + Press
Americana UK - Review
"Next up, we have The Water Chorus and their new four-track EP entitled Scorn. This London folk quartet, consisting of Jack Saville, Ali Lawrenson, Caitlin Chalmers and Sophie Grenfell, blends the esoteric with the theatrical on their first release featuring this full line-up. Having enjoyed a year of major musical milestones, including supporting folk legend Martin Carthy and headlining at London’s iconic Green Note venue, the band look to keep the momentum going with an EP that aims to capture the raw energy of their live performances.
The band started life around the folk clubs of London shortly after the pandemic, quickly becoming a mainstay of the capital’s youthful folk revival, combining the richness of their four voices with fiddles, banjos, guitars, bouzoukis and concertinas. Each of the songs here is led by a different member of the band, with the opening number We Be Soldiers Three, featuring Grenfell, a rambunctious 17th-century drinking song shot through with dark innuendo, her haunting vocals identifying with carousing soldiers traumatised by war.
Lawrenson’s theatrical performance on The Maid and the Palmer taps into the band’s punk leanings, while Chalmers soaring Glaswegian brogue is a perfect fit for the lesser-known Rabbie Burns poem Willie’s Wife. A possible highlight of an excellent quartet of tunes is the mournful The Rocks Of Bawn, the bittersweetness of the poetry consummately captured by Saville’s raw vocals. With Scorn, The Water Chorus have well and truly positioned themselves at the top table of the current folk music scene". - Americana UK
FATEA - EP Review
"The Water Chorus is a London based folk quartet made up of Ali Lawrenson (vocals, fiddle, banjo and melodeon), Jack Saville (backing vocals, guitar, bouzouki, and bodhran) Caitlin Chalmers (vocals, backing vocals, shruti box) and recent addition, Sophie Grenfell. With echoes variously of Pentangle, Steeleye and Fairport, this EP is a wonderful throwback for those of us who lived through the early years of the British Folk Revival: recorded folk music true to a live performance. Instrumentally, the sound of The Water Chorus seems to span British, Irish and Breton folk, and makes this EP well worth a deep listen.
The appropriately titled "We Be Soldiers Three" opens the EP, a traditional song dating back to the break up of the Holy Roman Empire. The original song describes the fear instilled by displaced Dutch soldiers, possibly mercenaries, across northern France, Belgium and into the newly formed Netherlands. They'd beat you up soon as look at you, so it was probably good strategy to give them a wide berth.
With Grenfell taking the lead vocal for the opening song, the baton now passes to Lawrenson for "Maid And The Palmer". Both have what I would describe as 'English folk voices' and with further backing from Sackville, the trio bear their retro sound really well. This song has seen many manifestations over the centuries, including as a murder ballad, with this version carrying a more upbeat sound. The 'palmer' in this case refers to a pilgrim who meets a woman at a well who refuses him a drink, with all the biblical referencing that provides: it's believed the original European version refers to Mary Magdalene with the 'palmer' being Christ himself. As a small aside, I happen to be one of nine children!
Over to County Galway now (probably at any rate) for a fantastic version of "Rocks Of Bawn" which has been selected for Compendium airplay on 4th February on Folk Friday Radio. This slower paced song is my personal pick. "You never will be able to plough the Rocks of Bawn" pretty well tells the story of the song, believed to have originated sometime in the 18th century. It's about a farmer pushed to the margins of productive agricultural land, a story of poverty, struggle and lost opportunity.
"Willie's Wife", also known as "Willie's Lady" tells of a King whose mother disapproves of his choice of wife, and (as you do) casts a spell that renders the poor girl perpetually pregnant. Again, the song has different manifestations, but here The Water Chorus maintain the largely upbeat feel to their excellent EP. Well worth a punt folks." John Reed, FATEA
Water Chorus x Cardboardistan
Developed to accompany our recent E.P. ‘Scorn’, this collaboration is an entirely original puppet show created and performed by American-Iranian mother and daughter puppet collective ‘Cardboardistan’ (Mina Odile and Leyla Ebtehadj).