Post Description

The latest album from Allan, his 20th, is heralded as showing a return to the more folk-inflected style of troubadour song that characterised his earlier years. Whatever, Allan remains the consummate craftsman-in-song, and he hasn’t in any way abandoned the key themes and concerns that he’s developed and made very much his own over a long and illustrious career. Leaving at Dawn is absolutely quintessential Allan Taylor, instantly recognisable for its telling combination of a uniquely expressive, warm and inviting vocal delivery and an attractive, precisely captured instrumental backing, centred as ever around Allan’s own intricately moulded and mellifluous guitar playing. But it’s also the product of an artist of total maturity and integrity, delivering work of the highest self-imposed standards and exhibiting (in every single aspect of its presentation) supreme confidence without complacency.
This new batch of songs was written(with just one 1993 exception) between 2001 and 2007, each one a prime example of Allan’s second-nature ability to directly share his emotions in simple yet always profoundly literate language, thereby taking the listener on a journey that feels personal yet contains universal truths aplenty. Allan’s musings are affectionate and eloquent, yet often more complex than they appear, primarily because they’re shot through with the perceptiveness and realism that are the hallmarks of a true observer.
Leaving At Dawn is full of songs that follow the songwriter’s eternal preoccupation, reflection with regret, either musing sensitively on love (Lay Soft On Your Pillow, Back Home To You) or embodying a strong sense of genius-loci (Provence, New York In The Seventies), often memorably bringing together both strands in the same song. Especially beguiling here are two songs in traditional vein (Firefly, already celebrated in Tom McConville’s fabulous recording, and The Last Of The Privateers), The Almost Man (a chokingly pertinent tribute to Allan’s father), and Winter (a beautiful and masterfully poetic expression of tender reassurance), while Red On Green is Allan’s own translation of a poignant song of farewell composed by Massimo Bubola based on a WW1 love-letter written my Massimo’s uncle.
The disc’s exceptional, state-of-the-art recording draws you in right close, with Allan’s very special and intimate delivery cocooned by the immaculately judged and empathic contributions of a handful of other musicians (guitar, dobro, accordion, banjo, bowed psaltery, fretless bass). I feel sure that Leaving At Dawn will come to be judged as one of Allan’s finest ever collections.

Allan Taylor - Leaving At Dawn

Label: Stockfisch Records
Catalog#: SFR 357.4057.2
Format: Hybrid-SACD, Album, Stereo, Multichannel
Country: Germany
Released: 2009
Genre: Folk, Rock
Style: Singer/Songwriter

Tracklist:

1 - Winter 3:54
2 - The Almost Man 6:31
3 - Back Home To You 4:43
4 - Provence 3:46
5 - Firefly 6:07
6 - Lay Soft On Your Pillow 4:06
7 - New York In The Seventies 6:10
8 - The Last Of The Privateers 5:43
9 - Leaving At Dawn 4:19
10 - It Could Have Been 3:36
11 - Make Another Turn 5:08
12 - Red On Green 3:46

Lang naar gezocht, eindelijk gevonden. Dan is het natuurllijk leuk om te delen.
Veel luisterplezier gewenst.