Katrine Polwart - Traces

Poignant Narratives

Quality radiates throughout this 5^th album: the songcraft, the singing, the harmonising, the support playing, and the poetic storytelling. This is pure in that singing too, Karine Polwart’s Scottish lilt such a distinctive and affecting feature. There are a number of reviews already out there that detail the storylines and their redolent grip on the realities that prompted them: search these out and be impressed by the ranging depth and wit of Polwart’s inspiration. One such is Tinsel Snow that evokes her childhood recollection of the BP petrochemical plant at Grangemouth on the River Forth, and the song is typically rich in its lyricism, as these snippets attest: ....in the east the fires are burning spires of stone and steel ... from a window such a wonder, flying saucers on the shore....she sees disco lights and diamonds, old Orion’s sword. Eighth track Sticks N Stones is at its folk best with a duet of harmonium and accordion, and the poignant narrative reminisces on the scuffs and scars and other indelible tags we leave in a home,

I’m bruised by the early morning,
I hear the whole house breathing

Footsteps in empty hallways fall to the sound of leaving

Inch marks on doorframes
And thumbprints on window frames
Ghosts of hereafter

Kitchen walls pock marked
With shadows of blue tack
And riddled with laughter

Scars where the bed stood
And names scored on old wood
And dreams in the rafters

Secrets in timbers
And tears spilled on red bills
And hopes in the plasterboard

Out in the world of numbers
One door doesn’t count at all

It’s just sticks n stones (and our dreams in the rafters)
It’s just sticks n stones (our hopes in the plasterboard)
It’s just sticks n stones (and our dreams in the rafters)
It’s just sticks n stones (our hopes in the plasterboard)
It’s just sticks n stones (and our dreams in the rafters)
It’s just sticks n stones
And our stories