The Unthanks: 'We have We have a juxtaposition between a folk vernacular and the kind of glacial orchestral backdrop'
Amid the wealth of classical concerts at this month’s Ryedale Festival, folk band The Unthanks are delighted to be making an appearance at the Milton Rooms in Malton.
Indeed Adrian McNally, the band’s long-time producer, arranger, composer and multi-instrumentalist, believes that they won’t be out of place.
“There is a quasi-orchestral element to our arrangements,” he concedes, adding: “Whether it’s being invited by a festival like this or being invited to a jazz festival or getting airplay from Radio 3 occasionally, it’s always gratifying to be embraced by channels that are normally associated with things that aren’t the first on our tin.”
Barnsley-born McNally says their show at the 300-capacity venue in Malton will be “a rare chance to see our full line-up in such a small space”, with all 11 members of the band onstage. “We normally play at venues that have a cap of 800 to 1,000 to make it work, he says. “It’s nice for us to play in a more intimate setting with that line-up, that opens up a side of our repertoire.
“We have a juxtaposition between Rachel and Becky’s vernacular which is very folk-orientated and the kind of dispassionate, glacial, austere orchestral backdrop which was originally based on my musical response to Northumberland (where the singing sisters hail from) in terms of its vast open spaces. When you think of the music of Northumberland, it’s usually Northumberland pipes, but there are lots of different ways to evoke a sense of place rather than being that literal.
“For me, Northumberland has these big skies and this peaceful present but bloody past so it has a stark beauty and a kind of forebodingness about it that I’ve attempted to capture in these arrangements. I suffer from vertigo so my relationship with big open spaces and feeling that you’re in one kind of setting then realising you’re in another and being thrown by it is something that I’m obsessed about.”
McNally did not grow up in a South Yorkshire mining community around classical music, but he recognises that his tastes in rock and pop from the 1970s have “an arc in terms of its musical ambition and its level of conceptual storytelling that might last an entire hour rather than three and a half minutes, so it has all the nuts and bolts of orchestral music underpinning it in a rock and pop setting”.
“So I guess I put that upbringing back into the instruments that those bands were originally influenced by in the first place, while at the same time wanting to have that rock and pop element to our music as well. That’s ultimately what we are, we like to bring people who might think that folk music is music of the lower classes, it’s an oral tradition, it’s not often given much credibility in terms of the elitist and highbrow ways that people perceive classical music and opera. I like to take those melodies, as a lot of orchestral composers did back in the day, a lot of them recognised that some of the best tunes around were traditional ones and tried to elevate them to different audiences that would not necessarily expect folk music to have the same truth and grace and beauty and merit as other higher forms of music.”
The Unthanks’ forthcoming double album, In Winter, due out in December, is the realisation of a long-held ambition. “It’s one of those things that’s been on the blackboard since Year Dot,” says McNally. “One day we’ll make a kids’ album – we still haven’t done that, one day we’ll make a Christmas album, but when it comes to making a Christmas album we’re not just going to (do the obvious). Also, some of those religious tunes from Christmas are the best tunes from that time of year, so it really is a cross-section of winter customs from wassail songs to carols from Spain, Germany and America. There are lots of songs about rebirth and the cycle of life as well, the end of the year and the start of another. But also we haven’t just drawn from the folk world because we’re people that grew up with all those Christmas songs like everyone else did, and we want it to be a real dream of childhood. It’s a dream-like piece, there’s lots of things float in and out of it, it’s quite abstract and that’s where I was coming from.”
A winter tour will bring them to Harrogate and Hull in December.
Among the diverse paths that The Unthanks have trodden over the past 20 years – with albums celebrating the likes of the Brontë sisters, Antony and the Johnsons and Molly Drake, mother of the cult singer-songwriter Nick – is a collaboration with Mackenzie Crook, star of The Office and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. After featuring The Unthanks’ song Magpie in his BBC sitcom The Detectorists, the actor asked them to compose the music for his reboot of Worzel Gummidge.
“We have a lot of famous fans and there’s a thread to the majority of them and that is comic actors,” McNally says. “I use that term specifically as opposed to comedians. They’re almost all comic actors – Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Mangan, Matt Lucas, Martin Freeman, Dawn French, Al Murray – and it was Martin Freeman that offered a kind of explanation to that, they’re all storytellers and what they appreciate about us is the storytelling and the authenticity and truthfulness. I think that’s the commonality and what Mackenzie appreciates about what we do.
“It was Magpie initially that created that relationship. He wasn’t going to make a third series of The Detectorists, he was leaving it at two, but when he heard Magpie he had the idea from listening to that song for the third series. He didn’t get to tell us that story until we went to a premiere of the first episode (of the third series) at Edinburgh Festival, he told us in the dressing room, that led to him asking us to do Worzel, which was such a joy to do.
“There’s a lot of kids’ films that have content for the kids and content for the adults and kids don’t necessarily need to understand the adult jokes, but there’s very little modern content that you can truly describe as being for everyone and true family watching, but I think he achieved that with Worzel.
“We’re very proud to work with him, he was a super guy to work with and an interesting journey for us because he didn’t just want beautiful pastoral music which you mostly hear, he wanted us to do the falling down the stairs music as well and all the incidental aspects, he just assumed that we would work that out and that’s the story of our career, really – to say yes and then work out how to do it once you’ve said yes. That’s the best way to learn.”
The Unthanks play at the Milton Rooms, Malton on Tuesday July 23. https://ryedalefestival.com/event/42-the-unthanks/