PEACE FOR OLD GHOSTS - THE LATE LIGHT
The Late Light is singer-songwriter Simon Shippey’s seventh release as cosmic folk entity Peace for Old Ghosts on Eyeless Records. Lockdown gave him time, as it has for so many other artists unable to work at their day jobs, to refine a group of songs originally written in 2019. For the listener aware of the personal tragedy that enshrouds his 2015 release Sideways And Downwards, the dominant emotional tone seems to be of acceptance: an embrace of time’s capacity to heal with a view towards self-reconstruction. ‘I’ve got to give myself a break/We all make mistakes’ he sings on the title track. While The Late Light doesn’t have the earlier album’s thematic gravity (perhaps necessarily so), it’s a solid collection where Shippey continues to enhance his songcraft with a variegated sonic palette.
‘How Much Love’ could be a hit overground single with its Lloyd Cole/Elliot Smith vibes. ‘Knowing where you are is a good place to start/Knowing your mind, knowing your heart/Knowing who you are’. They’re lyrics that could sound trite coming from less skilled singers, but pellucid synths and gossamer guitars establish a warmth that encourages the listener’s sympathy and emotional recognition. It’s the closest the album gets to the indie pop-friendly tone of Sideway’s ‘I Am The One’; a side to Shippey's vocal style that suggests greater mainstream exposure is attainable.
His keyboard parts throughout the album have a subtlety and
sensitivity similar to one of Cole’s collaborators, Hans-Joachim Roedelius of
Cluster, or the mysterious Canadian musician Cy Marshall. Opener ‘Thy Will Be
Done’ concludes with distant guitars describing a chaotic murmuration redolent
of Lenny Kaye’s ambient contributions to Patti Smith’s ‘Birdland’. ‘A Different
Time’’s sunbeam-speckled changes recall Jackson Browne’s ruminative excursions
like ‘These Days’ (in particular, Nico’s version on Chelsea Girls). By
the song’s conclusion the accumulation of brushed snares, handclaps, organ and
guitars recall John Parish and Mick Harvey’s subtle and cinematic arrangements
for P. J. Harvey on Let England Shake. ‘This is Where I Came In’
personalizes the concept of circular time while ‘Spiders at Night’ has a touch
of Brian Eno circa Another Green World/Before and After Science
in its thickening atmosphere of crepuscular reverie.
This eclectic range of inferential sounds and approaches makes Peace
for Old Ghosts an exemplary bearer of the neo-folk flag. It would be good to
hear Shippey develop some of these textures in a purely instrumental vein, but
for now he achieves a suitable balance of vocal communication and musical
illustration. The Late Light is an intelligent song collection ideal for
adventurous pop fans with a taste for acts as disparate as Antony and the
Johnsons and Akron Family.
The Late Light is now available through Bandcamp via the link below
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