Now is the perfect time to be sitting uncomfortably as lurching out of the muck and mire come Bruce McClure and Oliver Whyte to turn our ideas of Farming as the fulcrum of the nation’s rural idyll on their heads.
A soft, insidious voice over a vaguely threatening throb shines a murky light on the farmyard as a dark, dangerous place. Cattle are given a voice, compared to humans and then given no choice as the electronic quagmire oozes around them. Animals are taken advantage of, figures of fun for our amusement and at their cost while in the distance away from this fœtid scene, the wildernesses at the edges of the land are recounted in loving detail. Where nature tries to reclaim, so beauty is finally found.
The electronic backings, simple yet unnerving, run with and then at odds to the monotone drawl, obscuring the more outlandish parts, causing the listener to lean in, rewind and consider; is a comparison being made between the birth of a child and the birth of a calf? Is this the logical conclusion to Animal Farm or will humanity always run roughshod over their wants and needs? There are points where it longs to be idyllic, the backing on “The Croft” reflecting a golden sunset; but when you look in the corners, madness and degradation lie. The backdrop veers from guttering groans to sepulchral organ, dogs barking and a crazed synth jig. The words can be muffled, but certain phrases escape and their sinister insistence begs the questions at the back of your mind that you don’t really want to face. The music ebbs and flows, covering and uncovering the words like a receding tide: tractors, pigeons, dogs, rust, muck, wild flowers, horses. It is all in there craving escape. In “The Children Of Jackson Lane”, they run wild, skipping dangerously through the undergrowth, although at the end “The house is empty”.There is an extraordinary first-hand account of a car crash and an opportunity to try and understand the fate of sheep, the backing a warning call. Everything is given an odd perspective, as if Sapphire and Steel had appeared to help uncover the burning questions. Towards the end, living in a giant sheep skull is normal; but what we realise is that nothing in the countryside is really normal — just scratch below the surface and beauty and darkness are vying for position while that voice continues intoning until the message is finally received.
-Mr Olivetti-
