Reviews

Artist: Karine Polwart
Album: Scribbled In Chalk
Label: Shoeshine
Tracks: 12
Rating: ****
Contact:Website www.karinepolwart.com

Multi-award winning singer songwriter, Karine Polwart, follows up her hugely succesful album "Faultlines" with a new album, "Scribbled In Chalk" on a new label, Shoeshine
The title of the album puts it at an interesting juxtaposition with the sound of the album, though not necessarily with the thoughts contained in the songs. "Scribbled In Chalk" gives the impression of something very transient, something that can be washed away at a whim, yet the actual music is more solid, deeper and louder than on the previous cut. The production seems to have caught a richer vein of instrumentation. It blends the layers together better and gives the sound a more wholesome feel. There's always a little touch that's brought out to reward you for listening. The band are properly bedded in, whilst guests must have almost immediately felt at home.
Like it predecessor, it's the songs that really bring the album to life as well as giving true meaning to the title. Emotions and history are ephemoral things. Chopping and changing, fading into the background only to rediscovered again. The heart is a fickle mistress, history reinterpreted.
One of the best examples of this is "Takes Its Own Time" It's a simple song about a man that stopped looking after his garden ten years ago. There's an assumption that it was because he'd stopped caring, but actually he was very interested in what nature would do to his garden when it got to select the seed. Same scene two very different interpretations.
It highlights Polwart's approach to songwriting, it doesn't just look from within, from one view point, she also tries to place herself outside of a situation to try and view it from a different angle.
Whilst there are many great songs on the album, I really feel the need to draw attention to "Terminal Star" a song about and for Jane Haining. Jane is a figure I'd not heard off. During World War 2 she was a missonary at an Orphanage in Budapest, where she was involved in passive resistance to the Nazi occupiers. For 'crimes' that included weeping whilst sowing the Star Of David onto children's clothes she was deported to Auschwitz, where she died in 1944. "Scribbled In Chalk" shows that Karine Polwart is a gem of a songwriter, that continues to sparkle and catch the light. The album gives you feedback as you put your effort into Karine's songs and tunes. An album that should take many plays without sounding stale.

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