Liz Overs debut solo album Nightjar is a heady mix of her own compositions and arrangements of traditional songs that, as the press release so perfectly sums up, are “stories of childhood, of loves and rivalries, fair maidens, cruel sisters and winged sorceress – are interwoven with glimpses of the natural world: honeysuckle, yellow poppies, briars and brambles, pausing in quiet murmurs under a snow moon, the pale moon, from her corner of the meadow”.
The album is held in beautiful suspension between the old and new like dust motes held in sunshine. It draws from the past on the four traditional arrangements and the present on the seven original tracks, but all are recorded in the most modern and vibrant way; so crisp and alive. The album opens with one of its strongest tracks ‘Prayer To The Year’* (which I reviewed back in December 2024) and like many of the songs it weaves a hypnotic melody over an arrangement of rolling chords, augmented with the warm slap of upright bass, acoustic guitar and mandolin. ‘Patterns’ builds like the best unadorned songs of Dolly Parton or Joni Mitchell with a warm perfection in Overs voice that reminded me of Karen Carpenter. ‘Patterns’ is also notable as it is one of five songs recorded live in the studio.
Folk, deriving from the German word ‘volk’ – or ‘people’ – gives us folklore, a term coined in the 1800s by William Thoms. In a simpler time before the internet, 24 hours news, and streaming services, music was one of the few entertainments. Songs are an oral tradition that often held the stories of people and events in a society that outside the gentry and the church could not read and write. Whereas classical music could be fixed in time as they had the luxury of expensive paper and ink, folk songs would be passed from player to player and therefore prone to alteration and interpretation.
Interpreting the traditional is perfectly demonstrated on those four songs: ‘Cruel Sister’ (also recorded live) built on a rotating backing of D-minor and G-major with a blush of melancholy as it talks of a mother and two daughters who live on the North Sea shore, the perfect small pearl of ‘Briar Bramble/Pale Moon’ which refers to Birling Gap, a local haunt and swimming spots beloved by Overs since childhood, the wistful ache of ‘Bad Girl’, the tale is of a young woman dying, her body salivating due to mercury poisoning, a past treatment for syphilis, and the bawdy ‘Fair Maid Is a Lily O’ which may sound familiar due to it being a variation on ‘Gently Johnny’ as featured in The Wicker Man (one of Overs favourite films), albeit with Overs’ own gorgeous melody.
The musicianship on the album is just glorious. As well as Liz Overs on vocals and autoharp there is Neill MacColl on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, EBow, marxophone, guitaret, psaltery, and vocals, Ben Nicholls on double bass, banjo, and concertina, David Tomlins on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin and The Binnie Sisters speaking on the title track. Everything is perfectly placed with enough space to breathe, and this simplicity is an often-underrated skill in a music business bent on stuffing songs with everything and the digital kitchen sink. On Nightjar you can hear everything from the sharp inflection of acoustic guitar, the crinkle of mandolin, the beatific strum of autoharp and the warm twang of double bass; which in the case of Nicholls easily matches the bravura playing of Danny Thompson (Nick Drake, John Martyn, Pentangle), especially on ‘Honeysuckle on the Vine’ (see video below).
Musicianship aside, the album is elevated to the celestial by Liz Overs’ voice which has a remarkable purity but also contains a resonant core; as if you can hear the susurration of leaves coming through her vocal cords. The album is timeless, walking the line between yesteryear and now; like using a digital camera to photograph 3,000-year-old standing stones. Listening to Nightjar is like filling your lungs full of fresh air or drinking from a clear mountain stream instead of a tap.
*’Prayer To The Year’ features a video by Dylan Hewitt director of the spellbinding film The Nettle Dress (Overs also sang on the film’s soundtrack).
Liz Overs socials: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Review by Paul F Cook
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