It may sound a little unusual, even awkward to begin reviewing an album of a musician by mentioning first the outstanding work of some other musician. It may resonate disrespectful and abusive. Anyway, in spite of the aforementioned, that was precisely what happened and if there is someone to be blamed for such thoughts it can only be Aldous Harding’s “Party” (2017). In fact after countlessly listening to such a magnificent album it emerged plausible that it would be really hard, for any musician to surpass the beauty it exhales, acknowledging that equaling it would be also quite a hardship.
Holly Arrowsmith awarded Tui for Best Folk Album 2016 for her debut album ‘For The Weary Traveller’, winning out over the two other finalists, nothing more nothing less than Nadia Reid and Amiria Grenell, just proved that no matter how high the stakes there is always the possibility to go battle for best the possible outcome.
The following piece from afghan sufi mystic poet Rumi «Nothing can help me but that beauty. There was a dawn I remember when my soul heard something from your soul. I drank water from your spring and felt the current take me.» could perfectly work out the spiritual guiding light underlying Holly Arrowsmith second studio album.
“A Dawn I Remember” is an album for all seasons though it might hit harder during Fall-Winter time. There is a recurrent, essential tension that persists all throughout the whole album, a certain blend of unease and disconcert that appropriately makes pair with the painful, sorrowful, feeling that walks Holly Arrowsmith through her dislocation from the rural to the urban, from a quiet, small town to the ferocious, noisy, big city.
The self-imposed uprooting, if we can put it this way, the call to move forward and inherently leave behind a world full of meanings and affections could only lead to a deep sense of permanent longing, the intense desire of settling in a place where she could start anew and give new meanings to an entirely new reality. “A Dawn I Remember” is a truly spiritual journey, an apparition, a religious, epiphany of the unfolding self, seeking new pathways.
Holly Arrowsmith’s “A Dawn I Remember” is decidedly, by full merit of the artist, the most remarkable album to have been released in the aftermath of Aldous Harding “Party” and by far the absolute best indie-folk release of 2018.
INDIEVOTION SCORE: 10/10