MUSIC

Bringing together a trio of Bristol’s finest, Three Cane Whale make delicate, beautiful ‘chamber-folk’. Julian Owen listens in.

“Mmm, this is good soup,” says the table at large of the spicy red lentil number being rapidly drained from their respective bowls. “There’s a little bit more,” says chef and host Pete Judge. “It’s got to go, so help yourselves.” We do and it does, while Pete modestly insists that the ongoing praise should be aimed at the recipe’s source, Maria, former chef at El Rincon. Though we – Pete, Alex Vann, Paul Bradley, Rock Desk – are now fully gorged on soup and accompanying hunks of bread, there’s even talk of a spicy parsnip and carrot number in the fridge. Not sure I’ve room, actually. And oh, Jesus, is that cake…?

In short this is, fittingly, the homeliest interview Rock Desk has ever had the pleasure to undertake. Fitting, because we’re here to talk about Three Cane Whale, a musical project Paul will describe as “sanctuary; an antidote to a lot of the stuff we’re involved in that relies on spontaneity, improvisation”. For him, that’s meant projects like the stunningly inventive, oft-frenzied Organelles and ambient impro-perfection of The Breathers. Pete is trumpet man for frenetic jazz/rock rule rewriters Get The Blessing, as well as sessioneer for the likes of Super Furry Animals and Papá Noel. Alex, besides working alongside Pete with Kneehigh Theatre, is best known as a member of Real World-signed instrumental folk dervishes Spiro.

By contrast, TCW bring pre-written discipline to bear on harmonium, bowed psaltery, trumpet, mandolin, guitar and more, to create music unlike anything you’ve heard. “Unutterably lovely compositions,” we said of their first gig ‘proper’ at last year’s Acoustic Festival, “altogether too delicate for concrete description. Impressions will have to suffice: ‘Dolls’ house ballet’.” A year on, about the best we can manage is ‘chamber-folk’. “It’s like taking just the white notes on a piano and writing tunes from that,” says Paul of its prettiness. “I love that the instrumentation enforces a sparseness,” says Pete. “And yet, when we’re all playing, and there’s a lot of arpeggiation, it can sound quite full and rich.” “Was it you who said ‘watchmakers’?” asks Alex of Rock Desk. It was, reviewing the Harbourside Festival. “That’s very perceptive. It sums up the interlocking nature, and the delicacy.”

As, indeed, does the name. Pete explains: “I was talking one day with a woman at the allotment, and she referred to a ‘three cane whale’. Apparently, it’s something they use on the Somerset wetlands. Made out of willow, looks a bit like one of those things you grow runner beans up. I really liked the notion of these three interweaving things giving it an inner strength.”

You can insert your own ‘growing goodness’ metaphor here, too. Even down to the way the band formed, after Pete and Alex turned down work with Kneehigh. “It was a bit ‘therapy’,” says the former. “‘What have we done? Missed six months of paid, exciting work to do a handful of gigs with our own bands.” “It was more like a tea and cake club,” recalls Alex. “I’d come round here, we’d eat a lot of cake, drink a lot of tea, play a couple of tunes. Paul started coming along, and all of a sudden we had a band with a real identity without even trying.”

Part of the identity comes down to The Rules. No vocals, for example. “There’s a thing here that you don’t get in music with vocals, an equality between the parts,” says Pete. “As soon as you bring a voice in it automatically draws physical focus and shifts the balance.” “Limitations spur creativity,” says Alex. “The limited pallet and no technology make you absolutely do the best you can.” Another rule: Paul is only allowed to play guitar and, shortly, harp. “I’d love to play a bowed instrument, but I’m barred,” he says, disconsolately. Pete relishes his being reined in. “He has very little chance to improvise, and I love that because you can sense his elbows are banging the box all the time – it brings a real energy to these pre-composed things.” He loves it really. “It’s the pleasure of taking creativity from absolute emptiness – silence to a delicate level of noise. I’m sure something physical happens to the ear – the music goes quiet and your ear wakes up, searching for it.” “Music to make you stop what you’re doing and gaze out the window,” says Alex.

The debut album launches on Sat 2 Apr in the Redland church where it was recorded by Jon Hunt in “one extremely long 11-hour day”, and will be released on the Wraiths/Spiro man’s Idyllic label. A final, telling point regarding TCW’s place in the trio’s affections. Tomorrow, Pete will fly with Get The Blessing to a high-profile jazz fest in Dubai. He sounds a whole lot more enthusiastic talking about his ultimate gigging ambition for TCW: to play “a beautiful little church in Partrishow in the Black Mountains. Seats about 30, so isolated it escaped the dissolution of the monasteries. All you can hear is the stream that runs down the valley. I’m determined we’re going to gig there.” Sanctuary indeed.

THREE CANE WHALE WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THREECANEWHALE
 

Copyright Julian Owen 2011

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