Neil Richards — Ancient Loyalties (Hobbies Galore)
Ancient Loyalties by Neil Richards
“I recovered a little wonder, I thought lost all these years,” Aussie folk singer Neil Richards sings on “Lightning Street.” The lyric perfectly captures how his new record Ancient Loyalties, which includes self-recorded tracks dating back to 1981, came to exist. It should also speak enticingly to the private press folk fans out there who are bound to eat the album up, especially if, or when, it makes it onto vinyl. But so far at least, it’s only available as a limited edition (and nearly sold-out) cassette and digital download on the Hobbies Galore label.
Those who’ve been following the jangle pop scene since the days of dolewave might recognize the name Tam Matlakowski (Pop Singles, The Stevens, Permits) who holds a special connection to Ancient Loyalties. Tam (aka Tam Vantage aka Tam Richards-Matlakowski) is Neil’s son, and, as Neil suggests in his recent RRR radio interview, the catalyst for the album ultimately achieving fruition. Matlakowski recorded the bulk of the tracks in recent years and lent vocals and accompaniment to a handful of songs before sending the finished versions to the label’s Alex Macfarlane. “It took off from there,” as Neil puts it, which is kind of a funny thing to say about a record 40 years in the making. But tragically, Neil wasn’t able to enjoy the full experience that comes with releasing one’s debut album: He passed away shortly after the interview aired, and less than a month after the record was released.
Scottish folk legend Bert Jansch looms large in Richards’ style. It’s hard not to compare the songs on Ancient Loyalties to Jansch’s late-career songwriting, which shares its reflective focus if not its technical proficiency. Jansch’s “High Days,” for instance, is a meditation on regret in regards to his friendship with Cliff Aungier. Richards’ regrets, by comparison, are both more generalized and more resigned: “Fuel, fire, rage/I’ve been along that road/Rumors of grace/Tides turning wherever we go,” he sings on “Fool For A Day.” Instead, Richards saves the specifics for the moments that he’s come to hold most dear. “Those Were The Holidays” is a particularly affecting song which recounts a cold weather walk on a beach. Each time that Richards sings the line about jumping over the sand dunes his voice adopts a resonance that evokes the solemn quality that accompanies the memory.
And while the hummable melodies of many of Richard’s vocal-led songs are bound to attract listeners in their own right, the rest of the songs on Ancient Loyalties should scratch a few different itches. “Crow Dance” stands out as the only track where Richards plays the dulcimer in the traditional style. The hiss of the tape machine and a few off-kilter notes lend tension to the song while it’s finding its feet, before the sound of a hushed voice is faintly heard and the dance picks up. As Richards explained to Neil Rogers at RRR, he had a frustrating time playing guitar at points over the years and ended up switching to dulcimer, which he found to be a more rewarding instrument. On “Citizen Sleep,” the longest, most winding track on the album, he puts the instrument through an interesting workout. Throughout its eight minutes, Richard’s playing proceeds in a stop-start fashion wherein brief cascades of notes are followed by winding folk leads that uncannily recall Pat Gubler’s first couple of P.G. Six albums. In fact, the mixed quality of the recordings on Ancient Loyalties lends the album a faded and flickering ambience, similar to what characterizes Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites and The Well of Memory.
Richards runs into a couple of dead and off notes on these recordings, but their inclusion only adds to the mood and earnestness of the songs. You get the impression that Richards and Matlakowski might also have been working against the clock to capture these songs in the end. When asked if he was going to play live to support the release, Richards said that he’s no longer able due to health issues. But, just as he does throughout Ancient Loyalties, he chooses to dwell more on the brighter side of things: “The technology is so much better these days, so fighting to be heard over a crowd or a cappuccino machine wouldn’t be quite so bad as it was in [my] days.” Here’s hoping that, now that this wonderful batch of songs has finally made it out into the world, it will reach the audience it deserves. And just as Richards, in “Those Were The Holidays” comes to value the shells, stones and seaweed that he collected on that long ago day at the beach, fans of between-the-cracks folk will come to appreciate Ancient Loyalties for the idiosyncratic treasure it is.
