Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
When something new comes your way, you can either embrace it or you can deny it, ignore it and let it slide away from your grip as easily as mist through your fingers. Many will travel down the road of ignorance, the modern age demands that we are somehow too busy to listen to something that isn’t within our perceived comfort zone, instead being satisfied by the constant drum beaten to which we have become accustomed to.
To find common ground in the sphere of influence afforded by those who live in a different space, perhaps physically, but certainly spiritually, is one of the great wonders of the emotional world, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon may have inspired beauty, the Pyramids may have accelerated learning, but in terms of being one with a spiritual form, of understanding a person’s ideal through music, that is where the collective can live in a world of belief, and where Sheffield’s incredible new band Mishra have adorned the airwaves with their stunning debut album, The Loft Tapes.
Winners of the inaugural Christian Raphael prize at the 2018 Cambridge Folk Festival, Mishra’s mission is one of captivation, of capturing the soul of the performers and bringing a delicate, yet responsive sound to the ears of the general public. It is a mission that has surely been fulfilled as Indian influenced songs such as Chase The Sparrowhawk, Beautifully Blind, Angeline The Baker, Keep Your Kindness, Scarlett Town and Morphology are released into the surrounding air with freedom, with care and genuine skill and precision.
The band, which originally comprised Kate Griffin on banjo, guitar and vocals and Ford Collier’s extraordinary guitar, calabash and tabla, has been taken a step further by the willingness of expanse provided by Joss Mann-Hazel on double bass and bouzouki and the energy of their University mentor John Ball on the tabla. It is a team they explore the fundamental belief of global folk, their Indian influenced music soars with psychological contentment, but also one that searches, that requires examination, to infuse their love to that of the listener; one they succeed in doing with resulting drive and a cool that is utterly divine.
An astonishing album that surrounds the listener with charm, The Loft Tapes is a dream of a recording.
Mishra’s debut album, The Loft Tapes, is out now and available via Hudson Records.
Ian D. Hall