DAVID MORRIS, proud Falmothian and singer with Red River Dialect – the six-piece who’ve brought us some of the most vital of British folk-rock over the past decade – has shared a solo sketch.
Described by David as “a lockdown love letter to my housemates”, “The Ballad of Ross Wyld” strips back the layered instrumentation and poise we’ve come to expect of Red River Dialect to present as directly communicated experience, naked, unadorned; sparse, fragile and unaffected.
The eight-minute track begins as a yearning for the dream house, its colours, “pink on one side, at least …. and a shower outside, with a tree fern canopy/there’s nothing quite like a new frond/unfurling in front of my eyes.”
In a Brechtian swerve, David leaves the writing of the song, even as he sings, to think about where he’s living, the impermanence of everything; even the nature of songwriting.
The song shifts from a simple two-chord block and into a more raga interval at its denouement.
It’s tender, exploratory, and as a singer outside the fences of his fine band, it moves from the Fairport tradition and over to something a little bit more Bill Fay; a little more Richard Dawson.
“The Ballad of Ross Wyld” is available now on a pay-what-you-wish basis at https://davidjohnmorris.bandcamp.com/releases
You can also watch and listen below.
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