Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The Pendulum is never still, it keeps going back and forth like a violin bow on heated strings or as steady as a pulse at rest, always ticking, always marking off time and nibbling away at the seconds between experiences, it only takes the randomness of it actually being progressively slowed and forcibly stopped for it to be missed and the pulse to be eulogised over. It is in the cheerful domain of that eulogy into which Gillian Frame pauses and then lets rip in a flurry of excitement, poise and grace; like a Pendulum she is ever present in the thoughts and listened to with ease.
Gillian Frame’s debut solo album is one that could arguably be one that was delivered with a lot of pressure attached to it, but also one that was never in doubt of succeeding, of being truly comfortable in its own skin, it is an album that reflects with some majesty on the relationship between time and the soul, that somewhere in the mists that surround us, the small loose threads that snatch at each brief second, lives a harmony waiting to be created and adored.
Gillian Frame’s Scottish roots play into the hands of the violin and the dreams of a nation that has contributed so much to the world, the memory of passion, never lost in the psyche of the Scottish people, flows out of the album as if a thousand strong army had descended from the hillside, kilts flying in the breeze and the tangle of heather, burrs and thistle had been disturbed with gentle care. This is not only an album for a musician, it is one in which pride of a nation’s ambition can be heralded in its young.
In tracks such as Lovely Molly, The Echo Mocks The Corncrake, Universal Hall/Spider’s Legs/Cha Tig An Latha and the killer finale of Pendulum/Grace’s, the spirit of independent free spirit, of youthful desire and motivation are all to be heard, all to be objectively seen as fulfilling the first part of a long term plan and it is one that should be praised.
The Pendulum may swing back and forth, it may keep time well, however it doesn’t keep time like a heart full of truth and zeal; Gillian Frame is a musician to obsess musically over.
Ian D. Hall