The UK folk group The Rabbitts was formed by Odhran Linsey and Lucy McKinlay after they discovered a shared love for music. Their debut album Tall Pines & Tangled Vines was inspired by their adventures travelling around the wilderness of British Columbia. Like the album cover’s hand-drawn artwork, there is a homegrown, folk art charm to the duo’s sound, and it’s very much the effort of two people who have withdrawn into their own creative world. There is no outside universe, or at the very least none of any interest, which permeates this bubble, and consequently there’s a tremendously intimate, ritualistic quality as if the listener is a passive intruder.
Everything on the record is played by the pair, and although it is relatively sparse, the arrangements are nevertheless rich in layers of clever instrumentation including mandolins, mandolas, and percussion like the bodhran. There’s certainly a modern element to standouts like the almost twee “Luna Lupe,” but everything remains inextricably attached to folk artists of the past giving the album an authenticity centered around tradition. Best of all, however, their vocals have that special rare quality of blending magically as if they were specifically designed for each other, and Tall Pines & Tangled Vines has an undeniable charm and chemistry which is impossible to fabricate.
