The best thing about the pairing of Chris Murphy and Seth Lakeman is that neither musician appears to have arrived with a plan to turn the other into something else.
Murphy comes from a broad American musical background, while Lakeman has spent much of his career working with the sounds and traditions of British folk. Put the two together and the obvious question is what happens when those musical worlds meet. On Songs from the Trees, the answer is seven songs that give both artists room to bring something of their own.
Lakeman’s fingerprints are all over the arrangements. He plays banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin, as well as producing the record, while Murphy brings vocals, violin and his songs to the sessions. Engineer Josiah J. Manning completes the core lineup, contributing guitar and helping with the recording and mixing.
That setup matters because this does not come across as a songwriter handing finished material to a producer and waiting for it to come back polished. Murphy has described the sessions as a five-day burst of writing, recording and mixing, with the group tackling roughly one song per day. It was a quick way of working, but also a very hands-on one.
The title track gives a good idea of how the partnership works. Murphy’s vocal has a conversational quality, while the fiddle and banjo give the arrangement a very different kind of movement. The two approaches sit alongside each other rather than competing for attention.
Lakeman also brings a familiarity with traditional British material that changes the musical surroundings of Murphy’s writing. That becomes especially relevant as the album moves towards maritime and folk influences. Murphy’s songs remain at the centre, but they are being dressed in sounds that come from a different musical history.
The interesting part is that Murphy’s wider influences make the combination less surprising than it might first appear. His work has crossed folk, jazz, classical, ambient and world music, and he has spoken about influences ranging from Neil Young and Leonard Cohen to Bob Dylan. He has also explored Turkish and Indian music, among other traditions.
So this is not really a case of two musicians from opposite ends of the map suddenly discovering one another. It is two musicians with a long-standing interest in music beyond their own immediate surroundings finding a productive meeting point.
That makes Songs from the Trees worth hearing for the collaboration itself. Murphy and Lakeman have different musical histories, but the record does not spend seven tracks underlining that difference. It lets the musicians get on with the more interesting business of seeing where those histories overlap.
