“Slacker trad.” That’s how UK-based duo Milkweed describe their sound. And though it might not seem like much information, it’s actually one of the most revealing statements the otherwise cryptic outfit have offered. How better to describe the reimagined folk carols which made up Milkweed Sings Carols, or their take on the ballad-come-Joan Baez hit ‘Trees They Do Grow High’? We might not know who they are or where they come from, but when it comes to Milkweed, perhaps ‘slacker trad’ is all we really need to know.
Only it’s not. Because both terms come with their own associated baggage, and neither quite manage to communicate the project’s ambition and inventiveness. Listen to Myths and Legends of Wales, the debut full-length Milkweed album coming next month on Devil Town Tapes, and the immediacy of slacker spirit might be apparent, but none of its careless, hard-hearted process. Similarly, though ‘Trad’ might evoke some of the release’s historic flavours, it does nothing to elucidate the weird, mystical and sometimes subversive tone of the songs. ‘Slacker trad’ Milkweed might be, though they are also so much more.
Based on a book of the same name by Tony Roberts, Myths and Legends of Wales sees Milkweed adopt a novel MO: concept albums sourced from single works of esoteric literature. The duo lean fully into the constraints of the method, with everything included on the record lifted from the text, be it the stories and artwork or the very words themselves. But far from suffocating under the confines of such a practise, the resulting album emerges curiously alive. As though in forcing themselves into such a strict process of creation and committing so completely to the source material, some of the strange energies described in Roberts’s work are channelled back into the world through the songs.
This effect owes much to the wider methods the duo employ. Working on their houseboat home, Milkweed recorded the album live in a single day without overdubs or even prior demos to which to refer. With idiosyncrasies and imperfections left intact, the result plays like something emerging from the day in which it was created, the songs a series of ephemeral moments captured in all their fleeting magic, as spontaneous or fated as any preternatural event. The paradox of unintentional things rising from an intentional process. As though the creators are finding out the shape of their creation along with the audience. Not artists so much as conjurors, performing the rites and observing whatever happens to be called forth.
Today we have the pleasure for sharing ‘Yellow Plague’, the first single from the release and the ideal introduction to its tone and mood. A song both rough and strangely vivid, the offering of some travelling medieval troupe arriving in the village square with what might be arcane histories or visions of what is to come. In this case king of North Wales Maelgwyn who, seeking refuge from the mysterious illness referenced in the song’s title, took to a church in Llanrhos, Conwy. Only Maelgwyn couldn’t resist looking upon his kingdom through the keyhole, which was apparently enough for the plague to reach and ultimately kill him.
Yellow plague,
A column of vapour
spreading all along the ground
made men faint,
women barren
no cure was ever found
Seeing as the album revolves around myths and legends, it seems fitting to start with its own history. What’s the origin myth behind Myths and Legends of Wales?
The origin myth of the album is that it’s all sourced from the book Myths and Legends of Wales by Tony Roberts, which we found in a charity shop. Which isn’t to say that the actual finding of it was particularly important or that the book made an impact on us when we bought it.
Because we live off grid we do our recordings in summer, when the solar panels are getting enough charge, and in winter we write new material. So when last winter set in and we knew we wanted to make an album, we just used one of the few books that we had on our boat, we hadn’t even read it. And when I did read it I wasn’t even sure it was a good book. It was only after spending six months working through it that I’ve now come to think of it as something special.
Was this turn toward the esoteric purely coincidental upon finding the book, or is your interest in that sort of thing more ingrained?
The purpose of Milkweed as a project is to utilize esoteric material. There are a lot of folk musicians who also have an interest in really minor or archival works, but it just always surprises me how many times people will keep recording versions of Willie o’ Winsbury. And there is nothing wrong with that, it’s beautiful, and I genuinely love hearing all of them! But the notion that there is now an established canon, like this is the stuff that matters, when there is so much material!
And not just songs. When we first started this project we were going to the Cecil Sharp House and trying to find songs we didn’t know, or alternate versions, but eventually started feeling kind of limited in that. It’s been really freeing to realize that we could literally use anything as source material, we don’t have to find more song books. That’s just adopting a folk mindset, realizing everything that has come before, really everything everything: poems, recipes, journals, police records, text books, is there to explore and use. Really what we’ve done now seems so straight to me I can’t wait to keep exploring further out.
You only need to look at the song titles to get an idea of what’s in store. ‘Yellow Plague’, ‘The Wild Red Men’, ‘Bowl of Piss’, there’s lots going on. Do you have a particular favourite story in the collection?
‘The Wild Red Men’ is the story that convinced me that I could make songs from this book. That one was already so balladic in the way it was written, I really hardly had to cut or adjust a single word. And also I just find it very poignant. You have a woman who watches as her sons are hanged and rips her top off to screams, “These breasts have suckled those that you are murdering and those that will wash their hands in your blood!” Fantastic!
Could you talk a little about the recording process? I understand you tried to make it as immediate as possible?
You know what it is, after you’ve spent months composing and running through some songs, you just know that this is it, this is all they will ever be. We literally did not make any demos as we were making these songs, I just really didn’t want hearing them recorded to influence my opinion. If it felt good in the room, then that’s it. Even if it’s flawed, so be it, you made a flawed work. Fine. Move on. Put the effort in to write it, but then just record it fast and call it a day.
There are also some self-destructive tendencies in that, out of our own stubborn ideas about things. Like I personally really don’t like super produced albums, I want to hear the rawest version of what people sound like. I want to hear the parts of the performance they’re insecure about. There’s real vulnerability in not hiding the weaknesses in what you do.
So I can get a bit overblown with those ideas and refuse to exercise the smallest effort to make the work cleaner. Like deciding to not move the boat a half mile down river so we aren’t under a railway bridge. And that’s the way it is. Trains and all.
Finally, we can’t talk about this without asking about your own encounters with the stranger side of life. Do you have any myths and legends of your own? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen or been told?
The strangest thing that ever personally happened to me was that one time in the blackberry bush.
Myths and Legends of Wales is out via Devil Town Tapes on 16th September and you can pre-order it now from the Milkweed Bandcamp page.
