Power Blocs / Mustard Seeds

Description

Power Blocs / Mustard Seeds is the sophomore album by the British singer/songwriter Billy Penn’s Brother (a.k.a. Richard Nicholson of Giantkiller fame), a cassette-only effort independently released on Torn Curtain Records in 1990. The album was produced by Dave Markee in his Croydon Studio. (The album was recorded in two days and much of the recording was apparently done on a first-take basis, to avoid the sterility of over-production.) All songs written by Richard Nicholson.

Featuring Richard Nicholson on vocals, acoustic guitar, high strung, mouth harp, and tambourine; Johnny Pacitto on electric guitar; Dave Markee on electric bass and bass fiddle; with Kirsti Reeve providing flute.

If you’ve read the rest of this issue you’ll know that this guy talks a gdbd fight. The question is, has he got the songs to back it up? Let’s just say lyrically this album cuts through most of what’s around like a hot knife through an EEC butter mountain. The man has chosen to work within the folk mould – voice and acoustic guitar supple­mented by the sparsest of added instrumentation. The medium allows his songs maximum impact. Side one opens with a scathing attack on politicians who suddenly find their popular­ity, and the loyalty of their colleagues, on the wane. The second track, «Song For Annette», is based on the story of a nine-year-old whose burnt corpse was discovered in a ditch. “Oh yes it was a long dark night that brought you to that place/ tell me who upon God’s green and pleasant earth/ despised the crystal tears running down your face…just a man out there without name.” Nicholson has a ‘character voice’ – not good in the accepted sense perhaps, but instantly recognizable, with a Northum­brian richness that communi­cates outrage without resorting to hysteria. The third track, «Oh Danny Boy», is as effective on indictment of terrorism as you’re likely to hear. “Well the night’s as black as the Devil’s heart/ your hands they sweat as the wire sparks/ your fingerprints on the plastic dough/ will soon be gone, no one need ever know/ you lit the candles on a birthday cake/ and you made a wish they would all escape/ but limbs are flying through the air/ with wedding rings and teddy bears.” Other targets are property developers buying up a neighbourhood, in the song «In A Daze», written from the point of view of an alienated 87-year-old local; educationalists squeezing the dreams out of children («A Golden Bell Is Chiming»); deluded Christian banner wavers («Delusions Of Grandeur»); and the dishonest media («The Ten O’clock News»). All is not gloom and despondency however. «To Kiss A Fool» and «You’re Beautiful» are love songs, one to a wife and one to a daughter, and he has time to make a statement of faith on the autobiographical «Death On The Instalment Plan». “I heard some pilgrims with a voice/ one morning outside Wigan town/ then and there I made the choice/ to lay my broken spirit down/ beside the waters that run deep/ beneath the bridge that made the span/ where no one can make the leap/ across the gap that severs life and death on the instalment plan.” The album is flawed, certainly, by a low budget production. Perhaps some of the songs could do with editing; and I’m not convinced by all of the arrangements – but basically it’s so far ahead of the competition that these are minor points. In «A Golden Bell Is Chiming», Nicholson sings “On the 29th of April 1953/ this old world got a big surprise in the shape of me/ and for a while I stayed under the covers/ protected by my father and my mother/ they had a dream their boy would be elected/ but somewhere down the line I must have wrecked it.” Set the record straight – elect this man immediately. [James Attlee, Cross Rhythms, July 1990]

Billy Penn’s Brother Returns with a fuller band outing after the one man show of Coals of Fire. Of course, this is still acoustic folk music – the added instruments give it some added depth and cultural connection here and there. Nicholson addresses a wide range of topics, from tragedy to love to politics to culture. You can read about many of these various topics in detail in this review on CrossRhythms. I assume this is his third demo (since this is release RIP C003 and the last one was RIPC002), even though I can’t find what the first one is called. I do know that two years later the band was expanded to Billy Penn’s Brother & The Telephone Church for their 1992 release Ruckus in Real Time. Just not sure what happened after that. [Christian Tape Underground, April 4, 2018]

Cassette tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Who Loves You Baby?”
A2. “Song for Annette”
A3. “Oh Danny Boy”
A4. “To Kiss a Fool”
A5. “A Golden Bell Is Chiming”
A6. “In a Daze”

Side Two
B1. “The Ten O’Clock News”
B2. “O Savage Land”
B3. “Going Down to Jerico”
B4. “Death on the Installment Plan”
B5. “Delusions of Grandeur”
B6. “You’re Beautiful”