Michael Chapman - Fish

Black Vinyl LP

The great Michael Chapman has enjoyed a love affair with Cornwall dating back to the time he busked for supper at the Count House in Botallack, where he came across a character known as John The Fish, to whom this solo acoustic recording is dedicated. In many ways the two men were fish out of water: Chapman travelling from landlocked Hunslet, the Fish from North London, but the call of the wild drives the art down the A30, with musical contours marked as Pyramid points – Northumberland, Kernow and…Nepal.

Despite his lonesome, defiantly melancholic nature, Chapman’s star remains high. He actually is revered whereas so many others are handed the word like so much slack rope. One of the photos that accompanies the album shows Michael, approaching 75, clutching his trusty six-string from whose body he coaxes and cajoles the richest and most mellifluous tones. Since John Renbourn and Bert Jansch shuffled off to the folk club in the sky he is one of the sole fully qualified survivors and you can hear the truth dawn in the bluesy angst of Plain Old Bob Has A Hoe Down: down being the operative word here. Lament For Nepal is one of three love letters to the earthquake-ravaged Kathmandu Valley. A stark Nepali bell opens and closes this haunting piece, though as is so often the case with Chapman, the English pastoral qualities of the composition are equally compelling.

The lovely, lazy Wrytree Drift sees a return to familiar territory with echoes of his mystically brilliant Wrecked Again seeping through the cracks like sunshine infiltrating a blind. That late afternoon mood prevails throughout. This Reminds Me Of You sees the watery tune stopping and starting, dashing and meandering, sparkling before disappearing; it’s a reminder to seize the day. Or what’s left of it.

Could it get any lovelier? Oh yes. Stockport Monday (a nod to Tom Rush) rides in on splashes of strings, controlled noise and teasing, off-stage power chords, combining crafty drone with elegiac classicism. Jack, presumably written for the late Jack Rose, is a midway point on this expedition before the ragtime Vanity & Pride (such Chapman-like concerns) teases a lyric that never appears.

Ehud references the Israeli folk musician and protest singer Ehud Banai with grounded grace but the guitarist is soon restless again and itching for the US. March Rain could almost be a master class in exquisite American MOR beamed in from the early 70s.

All at sea again for the closing Nima Lama, inspired by the Sherpa that Chapman and wife Andru brought over from Nepal to see the ocean for the first time – in Cornwall, of course.

And so the album is resolved, with a whiff of sea spray and a momentary squall. The trance over, you’ll wake refreshed. Only Michael Chapman can do this. Go Fish .

(Mojo Magazine 2015)

Tracklist