Staff Reviews

Bill Wells and Friends - Nursery Rhymes

Review by Haydon Spenceley

An album with pedigree and no little gravitas»

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After winning the inaugural Scottish Album Of The Year award for 'Everything's Getting Older', which he made with former Arab Strap vocalist Aidan Moffat in 2012, Wells secured some funding from Creative Scotland to go make an album in New York City with a musician he had long admired, Karen Mantler, the vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and band leader - and daughter of innovative jazz musicians Carla Bley and Mike Mantler. Wells made an initial visit in early 2014 to meet Mantler, find a recording studio and to start recruiting musicians. He was able to fund Aby to come over to sing and play viola on the album, but in the spirit of the commission decided that he would otherwise only record musicians who were in or around New York. Mantler suggested bringing in vocalists Syd Straw and Amy Allison, and Wells asked long time collaborator Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub, now based in Canada, to produce the album. Vocalist Isobel Campbell happened, coincidentally, to be in the area at the time. He also invited Yo La Tengo, and Satomi Matsuzaki and Greg Saunier from Deerhoof, who play individually and collectively on a number of tracks. 'Nursery Rhymes' is a unique record in that it recasts these funny, violent, coded, centuries-old sentiments as fresh, new creations. Wells is a brilliant arranger and does wonders in finding new ways of looking at the songs, and drawing more out of their strong but spare melodic material. And he positively relishes the juxtaposition of a simple tune with dark lyrics. description from www.roughtrade.com