Sometimes albums arrive, from the off you know they’re fully formed and considered. This is one. After the opening track you just know everything is right, after the first four tracks you might consider this to be a four star album, by the time you’ve heard it through, it’s five star all the way. We here at Spiral Earth don’t band about the five star rating loosely, but believe me, this is the best thing I’ve heard in weeks.
Nigel Stonier might be happy with the label singer/songwriter or more likely that he’s a musician. Well… on the evidence here M’Lud I put forward the motion, he’s a craftsman as well as a musician. You know what that means? It means things matter to him like, inspiration, experience, relevance, reaction. His tools are melody, lyrics and a canny knack for reaching parts of listeners, others struggle to connect with – the head, the heart and feet!
The genesis of ‘Wolf Notes’ began back in the days of lock down – remember that?- when everyone’s world shrank, studio production and gigs were off the menu, Nigel looked inward and knowing he had time created a repertoire that was stripped right back to the core. If the songs could stand up in straight forward arrangements, then he’d know they’d thrive in proper recorded form later. It’s a theory that held water splendidly. In finished form nothing is left to chance, nothing is rushed, everything musically and lyrically is careful, considered. Everything is appropriate and appealing.
As well as being a solo artist, he’s also a parallel career as a producer and songwriter for others, I could write a list as long as your arm of the artists he has worked with – check for yourself though – what’s significant is the variety of genres and styles ventured into. The settings of the tracks on ‘Wolf Notes’ range wide and free. ‘Don’t Lose Songs,’ opens the album riding a lilting Celtic air, all the more fitting when you realise the lyrics concern the hope music can bring after a relationship fractures, ‘The New Alright,’ drenched in blues guitar and banjo is chunky, rootsy and drives along at pace. ‘That’s Where You’ll Be,’ a hymn to those missed is tender and touchingly orchestrated, perfect, reflective, candlelit. Similarly ‘I Believe,’ another reaffirming lyric “I believe in the healing and power to start again,” he delivers the words across a steady rhythmn section, looping guitar and piano pattern. ‘ A Train Called Inspiration,’ rocks along a countryish rush with a mountain fiddle. ‘Soul’ an unplugged slide and picked refrain sums up his philosophy “a wing and a prayer can only get you so far, if you don’t have the soul you don’t get the gig.” Nigel Stonier’s got soul and a whole lot more besides.
His first album in six years, and with guests/collaborators like Lindisfarne’s Rod Clements, Waterboy Steve Wickham, Rob Harris of Jamiroquai, Paul Beavis on drums and his sons on violin and percussion, the studio crew are both familiar friends and family who know how he operates. Production is top class too, outside ears duly noted. Issued on the small but ambitious APM label from Oxford, they’ve got themselves a real firecracker here, there isn’t a weak track. Which just goes to prove it’s also his best ever collection.
Nigel Stonier is the whole deal. Unreservedly recommended.
Simon Jones.
https://www.nigelstonier.com
