M G Boulter - Clifftown (Album Review)
As concepts for albums go, faded Essex seaside towns might not be the most likely choice but singer-songwriter M G Boulter has carefully hewn a hugely affecting set of songs from the rocks of Clifftown, a pseudonym for his beloved Southend-on-Sea. For those new to the name, Boulter has been making solo records since 2013, having cut his teeth in various bands and he’s now signed to the independent label Hudson Records, alongside Karine Polwart, Bellowhead and Jenny Sturgeon. With a vocal that is as vulnerable as Neil Young but as English as Nick Drake, M G Boulter has concentrated the promise of his first two records into an extremely accomplished third that marries his poetic lyrics with intricate (but unshowy) guitar playing.
The acoustic fingerpicking, brushed drums, strings and haunting steel of opener ‘Midnight Movies’ dress the most beautiful and fragile of songs. From the resonance of its opening line “these thoughts, they would bury you/if you offered them out loud” to the delicate, rolling banjo and gentle harmonies of the song’s climax, it is four and-a-bit minutes of pure perfection. But track two proves there is more to Boulter than just acoustic loveliness. The playful ‘Soft White Belly’ sports pumping drums, chugging electric guitars, Hammond and new wavey synths. It serves as a wakeup call before the relative quiet of the title track.
“London stretches her fingers out,” Boulter sings, as he paints a place within the capital’s grip. There’s regret and romance in the leaving and the staying alike, but there’s a sense throughout that many of the LP’s characters are at some sort of fork in the road. This is distilled in ‘Clifftown’ itself, which is charged with those illuminating, pivotal moments: “the sliding doors, they chatter apart/as if they’re speaking directly to my heart/leave this town, leave this town, you have your chance/but I slip through them and out, into the dark.” The more conversational vignette ‘Nights at the Aquarium’ extols the virtues of daydreaming and small, soft-spoken romance, before the Paul Simonish bounce of ‘The Author of All Things, She Speaks’ boasts another devastating opening line and the record’s most infectious guitar riff.
The hymn-like ‘Icy Paw’ bestows a reverence upon the humble jetty, while ‘The Slow Decline’ returns us to the subject of dashed hope, warning against the lies we tell ourselves: “my mind is all mess with future /can it be that every day you can start anew?” Like many other songs on the album, it is something between love letter and documentary, as it charts tales of the desperate and the lonely, the dead and the immortal. Despite the light, Joe Boyd-flavoured guitar lines, the track’s leaden pace and repeating guitar refrain act like a thick blanket of pathos, making it, arguably, the album’s most moving piece.
‘Fan of the Band’ nods to groups like Canvey Island’s legendary Dr Feelgood and the pub rock scene of the 1970s and 80s. The song rubs shoulders with the more ethereal ‘Simon of Sudbury’, inspired by Boulter’s pilgrimage to see the head of the late mediaeval Archbishop, which sits in a Suffolk cathedral. While this pairing may seem wildly incongruous, both songs have Essex – and England – at their core, as they explore ideas of national identity through their different histories. This broad and cerebral approach is one of the many things that mark Boulter out as songwriter of uncommon depth.
The weary waltz of ‘Night Worker’ starts to bring the record to a close, paying homage to night owls of all persuasions. It’s followed by the more contemplative ‘Remnants’ – which examines a life by what it leaves behind, neatly drawing together the strands of the previous songs. Clifftown’s most lyrically oblique piece, ‘Pilate’, is saved for last. Recorded back in 2016, it features the most wonderful, semi-orchestral arrangement and its soporific sway is a fitting end to an exquisitely conceived record.
Spotlessly produced and mixed by Andy Bell, Clifftown really is English folksongery of the highest order. As an autobiographically informed snapshot of a place and time, it’s as fascinating as it is emotionally stirring. Without being overly sentimental, M G Boulter finds beauty in the broken and in the mundane, and his is a suburbia that many of us will recognise and be moved by, regardless of geography. You can look, but you’ll struggle to find a finer thing than Clifftown.
Review by Rich Barnard.
Clifftown is released on April 23rd via Hudson Records
One of the positive aspects of running Red Guitar Music is that you encounter all manner of different musical genres that you wouldn’t necessarily find on your own. The RGM Inbox is positively overflowing with the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly (although something we find unlistenable is probably the best thing in the world to someone). One example that falls squarely in the good category of pleasant surprises is The Happy Couple, discovered on a recent visit to London’s Green Note, where the duo opened for Dimple Discs labelmate Kelsey Michael.