WHAT a welcome rebirth for this lost piece, a folk concept album – but please don’t let that notion put you off.
Originally released in 1987, this masterful collection of songs traces the path of a doomed love story, telling the affair from both sides and using spoken words as well as music.
The melding of dialogue and song works surprisingly well, with the words spoken by Michael Pennington and Marilyn Cutts, and sung by Hutchings and the fantastically haunting Polly Bolton.
Many of the songs would stand alone from the narrative, but one stands higher than all others: Brief Encounter is a truly lovely song and good enough reason to buy this album all by itself.
Luckily, there are other reasons too, notably great songwriting from folk-rock pioneer Hutchings.
A top-notch band of stalwarts includes Christine Collister, Clive Gregson, multi-instrumentalist Pete Zorn (often to be found in Richard Thompson’s band) and Fair-port drummer Dave Mattacks.
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