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Review: 'TRADER HORNE'
'Morning Way'   

-  Label: 'Earth Recordings'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '16th October 2015'-  Catalogue No: 'EARTHLP006'

Our Rating:
Don't be fooled by the fact that this folky collection initially sounds sweet and innocent. The faux-naivety masks some distinctly eerie undercurrents.

It is the one and only album by a male-female duo comprising Jackie McAuley and Judy Dyble. McAuley was once a member of Them while Dyble's most famous former band was Fairport Convention.

One curiosity is that the project was apparently named after John Peel’s Nanny (Florence 'Trader' Horne) who got her nickname from the 19th Century explorer. There is a further connection to the late deejay in that Dyble plays an electric autoharp gifted to her by Peel.

The physical edition of the album comes on sunset red vinyl and is limited to just 1000 copies worldwide. There's also a CD and download version which includes two additional tracks, Here Comes The Rain and Goodbye Mercy Kelly.

The work is widely recognised by those in the know as a cult classic which is another way of saying that it bombed when originally released in 1970. Writing in Electric Eden, music critic Rob Young says that its lack of commercial success was mainly due to the fact that, in common with a number of releases of the time, it "fell into an uncategorisable ditch".

The garish cover gives notice that illicit substances played some role in its genesis and clearly not all the acid-trips were good. On first hearing, the combination of whimsical folk tunes and neo-psychedelic ballads evoke a sprightly, carefree mood. It is only when you start paying close attention to the words and themes that you realise not everything in this particular garden is rosy.

The opening song, Jenny May, may pose as an innocuous playground ditty but the invitation to join in a game of cowboys and indians has a decidedly sinister aspect.

The Mutant is the strange story of a despondent alien "living a life just fearing to die" while the title track, and the album's centrepiece, another tale of faded or fading dreams with a melody line similar to that of Cream's Tales Of Brave Ulysses.

In this company, Down and Out Blues is by no means the only song to view life from a lowly perspective. Reflections on ageing (Better Than Today) and isolation (In My Loneliness) also take the listener to some unhappy places.

Meanwhile, despite the "million shades of colour" on Growing Man, the breezy duet paints a bleak picture of city life. The Mixed Up Kind includes the menacing detail that "the stars fell like darts and everybody died"

Alongside traditional instrumentation, some elegant string arrangements lend the work a sophisticated, even experimental, quality. In contrast, the once novel stereophonic effect of the two voices coming from separate speakers is just one of the features that dates the record.

While very much of its time, this album is a welcome reissue which should strike a chord with modern audiences well-schooled on the 'wyrd' or 'weird' artfulness of British folk songs.
  author: Martin Raybould

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TRADER HORNE - Morning Way