Roots music – blues, folk, country, and the like – has always remained grounded in the storytelling ethic that was always the main concern of the music of the people – from bardic orators to wandering medieval troubadours to 60s folk revivalists. Saltwater Gospel is an EP made in that tradition, though its story is even older than those already archaic roots.
JP Oldfield essentially gives us a song cycle where the central figure is clearly an echo of the classical Charon, the ferryman who transported the souls of the dead from the mortal realm to Hades’ underworld. But here, this mortal boatman struggles with the more human feelings of grief and loss as he struggles with the act of surrendering his deceased wife to the ground, the ultimate final act, the last irrevocable goodbye.
And, if we are used to such concept albums, for want of a better word, being the bastion of the progressive rock set, musically we find ourselves in an altogether earthier and darker sonic place. ‘It’s Just Begun’ is the tone-setting opener; guitars tumble and cascade and slide, sonic ghosts drift through the landscape, a sound forged partly of the blues-soaked banks of the Mississippi, part drawn out of the cold West Country clay that he calls home and part Ry Cooder’s haunting cinematic road trip through _Paris, Texas _
‘Wash Me Away’ feels like an old blues spiritual, shot through with squalling harmonicas calling like the distant sound of a hell-bound engine, a song where a groove ebbing and flowing like a dark tide is everything, further reinforcing the theme of water, which pervades this pelagic, salt-soaked, tear-tracked album. ‘Further From Heaven’ takes us even more distant from both the mortal and higher realm, with discordant chords and melodies gone awry that heighten the mystery, and ‘No Rest’ rounds the suite off with a suitably restless, relentless, roots-rock sonic rip tide.
This is music as storytelling in a way that has been largely lost in this age of polish and pose and perfect poise, shine and glamour, celebrity and sparkle. This is music of the campfire gathering, the basement blues club; it is a one-on-one, look me in the eye, hang on every word and note kind of delivery – captivating, full of dark intent and otherworldly – it’s authentic, honest, woven from musical integrity; it’s battered, bruised, in its own broken way beautiful, and it is brilliant.
