Faultlines Review

better days ________ www.coopradio.org

STANDING ON FISHES
Faultlines by Karine Polwart
http://www.karinepolwart.com

I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

Rilke

Karine Polwart grew up in a wee village in Scotland.
She is now in her thirties, the perfect age to release
a debut solo recording. She has written songs all along,
in stints with the Battlefield Band, MacAlias and Malinky,
so it's not the first time she's reached into the waters
for stories. But Faultlines is her own, the first record
that she has signed her name to. When you're making
yourself that visible and vulnerable, even by lamplight,
you want to be clear-eyed and true. She's all that.

Being host of a radio show I go looking for artists, and
when I saw the name Karine Polwart listed five times
in the BBC Folk Awards nominations, I sent an e-mail to
her website. Neon Records responded, and before long
I was listening to a promo copy of Karine's cd. Good as
the opening track, Only One Way, may be, it wasn't
until the second song, Faultlines, that I connected.

For every breath that leaves me now / Another comes
to fill me / And for every death that grieves me now /
The next will surely kill me / For those borders crumble
every day / The faultlines are showing / And all I thought
was here to stay / Slowly is going

There's a wisdom in the witness here. As a listener, I
had to stop and play this song over in order to hear
the footfall of this particular lyric again. Here we have
a song that can be heard as personal, yet in the lyric
there is also something universal, something anyone
who loves the earth and goodness can sing with an
all too familiar sadness and trepidation.

The BBC Folk Awards gave Karine three awards, for
Best Song, Best Album, and something they call the
Horizon Award for most promising new artist. Karine's
acceptance speech for that one featured a quip as to
the curious wisdom of the BBC's putting a 33-year old's
name in the same sentence with the word promise.
She must have been high in the voting for Folksinger
of the Year, too, an award which went to the veteran
Martin Carthy. She'd run out of hands, anyway.

The Sun's Comin' Over The Hill is the composition
that was chosen as song of the year. I can understand
why. It is, to quote fellow-Scot Dick Gaughan's title, a
different kind of love song. Karine needn't ever apologize
for writing her way into the dark waters where human
feelings live, for it is the strength of her gift to do just that.

The taste never left me and I don't think it will / And it
caused me to supplement whiskey with pills / But there
was something inside that I couldn't kill / Believe me, I
really did try

Some articles refer to Karine's years working with victims
of domestic abuse as being fertile ground for her songwriting.
Karine has inferred that some of the details in her songs
are not her own experience, but came from without. Those
years working with vulnerable people and finding ways of
offering a human hand make demands on the soul. While
I understand what writers mean in attributing some of her
depth to her social work - and I don't disagree - I prefer
to see it another way. I would rather acknowledge the kind
of human being Karine Polwart is, that her heart would
preternaturally be drawn to such work. I am certain that
she sacrificed more to that healing journey than it did to
her, and that it was, in relief, a way of helping her to define
her calling. By giving, we find genius.

Waterlily is a keening song whose feelings stand on fishes,
unwilling to drown with the woman in the story. I
suppose others sing songs that dare as much feeling,
but they rarely answer so nobly to the sorrows they raise.

And I swear to God I saw an angel hand attend you /
But that was just the dancing of the light / No mortal
or immortal did deliver or defend you / All hands have
forsaken you tonight

All hands but the writer's. She is the one standing on
the fishes, unwilling to let the story drown.

Old as I am / older than the threads of understanding

It's a curious thing, writing songs, not always knowing how
they find you, how they choose you. Mickey Newbury used to
talk of there being a radio station in outer space that he was
able to tune into. Myself, I've sleepwalked to the typewriter
in the middle of the night and written words that were spoken
to me by angels or ghosts. I'm sure Karine has some of these
experiences, and is, as she says, "older than the threads of
understanding." There's a kind of trust at work in her songs,
a depth and subtlety of care that we are not often privileged
to in music today. Karine once cited Joni Mitchell to me as
one of the writers she respected and was inspired by; much as
I love and admire Joni's work, I sense an even more grounded
spirit in Karine Polwart's songs.

The opening song, Only One Way, which I kind of skipped past
on first listen to Faultlines, has now grown to be a favourite as
the activist in me has resurfaced this past year.

We have to break all the rules they make / And take all the
risks they say we won't take / We have to make all the
trouble we can / Only one way / Only one way

Karine appears to get off a subtle shot at the leader of the
new Roman Empire, too, in this song. That she weaves
such a comment into a funky, riffing song is all the better,
so we can dance. You've got to find joy where you can!

When a genocidal maniac talks about grief / And you kinda
get the feeling that there's nothing underneath / But you
can't believe a man would lie through such nice teeth /
There's only one way...

It isn't often I first hear an artist and say, "This one..."
In Karine Polwart's case, I said to myself, "This one is here
for good." Karine will make many good records, and she will
be a clear voice for art and mystery and human kindness
and social conscience. And while diving deeply inside her
own voice, she will continue to be steeped in tradition and
lifted by native affection.

Her winning of awards and gaining of attention will bring her
not only a better living but a strict challenge. People are
making noises about this talented Scottish woman, and her
concert schedule is filling up fast and forward into summer.
When momentum arrives, the challenge is managing energy,
performing as much as is needed, but ensuring there's time
to rest and let the songs surface. It is a lot easier for them
to find you when you're quiet inside. It is like going under
the water, a dream state, standing on fishes, a way of
hearing to the bottom of your soul. Karine is an artist
with open ears and open hands.

Have you ever held something / Until your hands were
aching? / And then let it go and watched it fall / and
listened to it breaking? / I have held back time and tide /
when all the world was plenty / But now my hands are
open wide / open wide and empty

By giving, we invite genius. By emptying, we allow the
fullness to return. With Faultlines, Karine Polwart has
given us an intelligent and steady companion.

Promise?

Karine Polwart is keeping hers.

Doug Lang