Ruins EP by Stick In The Wheel
Underground hybrid trad-electronic duo Stick In The Wheel have put together three new recordings alongside three radical reworkings of friends and collaborators, each pushing in different directions.
Slow-burn grime-epic "Ruins VIP" laments civilisations falling again and again, using a 10th century text allegedly citing the fall of Roman Bath. "The Cuckoo VIP"’s pastoral vocal flits slowly over dubbed-out electronica. Hypnotic lo-fi "Long The Day 2.0" shimmers and segues into the calm moment of KILA & OKI’s lullaby, whilst Jim Ghedi’s complaint simmers with rage. Jrpjej’s track "Shexex (Chapshe wored)" evokes a Circassian healing ritual, their chants stretched into a monumental, pulsing, almost death-metal cut.
Ruins EP has a particular resonance today, where cities and communities are being ruined before our eyes from Gaza to Ukraine, Congo to Sudan. To reflect that fact, all proceeds from the release will go to Médecins Sans Frontières.
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The Exeter Book is the largest and perhaps oldest known manuscript of Old English literature to survive. Within, The Ruin is a grand elegy that recounts the desolation of a ruined, ancient city – supposedly Bath – juxtaposing the crumbling decay of the author’s present with the splendour they imagine in its past. Written 1,000 years ago, and yet it could easily be a tome beamed back from 1,000 years hence. It resounds through past, present and future. So, too, do Stick In The Wheel.
The duo’s new EP, Ruins, is named for that poem, using the words for its opening title track, where Nicola Kearey’s voice flitters between heavily treated vocalisations and stark spoken word over a slow-burn grime-like epic. “I’m interested in refuting this idea of people from the past being different, whereas actually they’re really just the same as us now,” she says. The song also has a particular resonance today, where cities and communities are being ruined before our eyes from Gaza to Ukraine, Congo to Sudan. To reflect that fact, all proceeds from the release will go to Médecins Sans Frontières.
Through their use of ‘The Ruin’ text, as well as medieval poem ‘The World Is An Illusion’ on the hypnotic track ‘Long The Day’, the band are making a statement. “We have an ideological problem with song collecting,” Kearey says, referring to the way most traditional material was gathered by the upper-classes in the 19th century. “Those people had an idea of what they wanted to collect, and what they wanted to reinforce; this idea of the noble peasant before industrialisation swept the country. So for us, it was “let’s get all those problematic collectors out of the way and see what’s left,” she says. This, however, is just one side to the release. When it came to ‘The Cuckoo’ the band wanted to “pick something that we wouldn’t normally pick,” challenging themselves to take this bucolic song and “make it sound like it was from the city,” says Ian Carter, other half of the duo, turning it into a foreboding cut of shuddering, dubbed-out electronica. It's worth noting that the band are as much rooted in electronic music as traditional – they formed out of elusive collective Various Productions in the mid-2000s, where producer Carter first worked with vocalist Kearey on a number of folk songs that appeared as B-sides to their seven inch releases.
Then, the EP contains three remixes, each pushing in different directions. ‘What Will Become Of England?’, originally by Jim Ghedi, is the most straightforwardly political, vocals subtly treated so they simmer with rage. ‘Oroho Raha (Mokor Mokor) (Sleep Sleep)’ by the Japanese Ainu musician OKI, on the other hand, is a moment of beautiful calm. They’re as much collaborations as remixes, with Kearey plucking out suitable texts with which to provide additional spoken word to go with Carter’s chopped-up music. For Ghedi, Kearey sought words that would provide “an answer” to the song’s questions, and found it in both the stark statement of ‘Song On The Times’, written following the repeal of the 1840s Corn Laws, and in words of her own: ‘England same as always / This is how we’re bound.’ For OKI, she drew again from The Exeter Book, this time a section on sleep from ‘Christ III’.
Lastly, there is a piece by the Circassian band Jrpjej. The original song Щэхэх (КIапщэ орэд) comes from a healing ritual, employing lurching vocal techniques to mimic the sound of arrows being wrenched from a body. Stick In The Wheel’s immediate connection to the music needed no translation, and in their hands, the song is stretched and thickened into a monumental, droning epic.
From Japan to Circassia, Ruins is a release that’s as far-reaching in geographical scope as it is in temporal. As Londoners, such broad-mindedness comes naturally, says Carter. “The multicultural nature of the record is reflective of our lives.” It also comes back a subversive streak when it comes to folk music’s received conventions. “There’s been an intentional lack of folk culture collected from the cities,” says Carter. “A lot of that resistance is just because those people didn’t like foreign influence, they view it as a pollution. But for us, that’s just who we are.”
Stick In The Wheel approach music with a fluidity and flexibility that allows them to use whatever tools will best serve the songs themselves: the Ruins EP is only six songs long, and yet it reaches far across time and space. -Patrick Clarke
Praise for Stick In The Wheel:
“Stick In The Wheel grab hold of folk music with both hands, dragging it through the 21st century city with no fear they might somehow break it.” THE QUIETUS
“The most important band in the current British folk scene” ELE-KING MAGAZINE, JAPAN
“Powerful - and deeply relatable” PITCHFORK
With thanks to the artists, Mais Um Discos and Ored Recordings.
Tracklist
Credits
Produced by Ian Carter
Co-produced by Nicola Kearey
Mastered by Ian Carter
License
All rights reserved.Tags
Stick In The Wheel’s work is rooted in traditional music and song, informed by the modern electronic music that grew out of their hybrid East London heritage.
“SITW grab hold of folk music with both hands, dragging it through the 21st century city with no fear they might somehow break it.” THE QUIETUS
“The most important band in the current British folk scene” ELE-KING MAGAZINE, JAPAN