Held

Description

Held is an album by the British singer and songwriter Yvonne Lyon, independently released in 2015.

As themes for so-called concept albums go, the subject of death is perhaps an unpromising one but not so in the hands of renowned Scottish singer/songwriter Yvonne Lyon. Primarily written as part of a Masters Degree in songwriting and spurred on by personal loss suffered by both herself and her writing partners on this album, Lyon has once again employed the services of her songwriter husband David and Foundry Music Lab production duo Graeme Duffin and Sandy Jones to offer up a release that is both heartbreakingly candid and eternally hopeful. Lyon is arguably more experimental than she’s ever been with the likes of the stark and abstract opener «Significance» offering up fleeting recollections to the backdrop of some skilfully fractured instrumentation (including a stellar turn from violinist Seonaid Aitken) before giving way occasionally to more upbeat fare such as the optimistic title track. Elsewhere, Lyon teams up with her Kilmarnock Edition colleague Fiona J MacKenzie for a rootsy English/Gaelic hybrid in «The Warp And The Weft» – a song that centres around the famous “there is a time” passage from Ecclesiastes – whilst some beautiful Spanish guitar from Wet Wet Wet’s Graeme Duffin in the minimalistic «See It Through» gives ample space for contemplation. In short, each track showcases Lyon’s masterful ability of translating the savage rawness of loss into tangible songs that echo the listener’s own experience of the grief, hope, regret and strength found in death – not least in the breathtaking «Learning To Live Again» and «Till We Meet Again» – to make an album that gets alongside the bereaved, weeps with them and helps them look upward and onward. Ending with the wistful «Speke Road Gardens» – an extended improvised meditation around a repeated phrase – this is a simply unmissable album from one of the country’s finest songwriters. [Lins Honeyman, Cross Rhythms, November 2015]

> iTunes (https://music.apple.com/us/album/held/1054437711)

CD tracklist:

01. Significance – 4:05
02. Held – 3:27
03. Learning to Live Again – 4:31
04. Already Made – 3:52
05. See It Through – 3:22
06. Till We Meet Again – 3:03
07. The Warp and the Weft – 4:31
08. The Things Unsaid – 3:50
09. Right There – 2:57
10. Speke Road Gardens – 8:20

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://yvonnelyon.bandcamp.com/album/held

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