Cuckoo Storm Adrian Crowley Artist

{|Cuckoo Storm|} is the first collaboration between {|Marry Waterson|} and {|Adrian Crowley|}, two distinctive singer/songwriters whose combined gifts create a compelling and earthy delight. The daughter of British folk legend {|Lal Waterson|}, {|Marry|} has nurtured her family's dynasty with a series of engaging musical partnerships. She first paired with her brother {|Oliver Knight|} on 2011's {|The Days That Shaped Me|} and has since made duo albums with fellow Brit {|David A. Jaycock|} and Australia's {|Emily Barker|}. Her 2019 set with {|Barker|}, {|A Window to Other Ways|}, so inspired the Irishman {|Crowley|} that he reached out and suggested they collaborate. Not unlike {|James Yorkston|}, his former {|Fence Collective|} labelmate, {|Crowley|} is something of a poetic weatherman, addressing listeners in a reassuring baritone that sits like a rusty anchor amid the stormy seas of his own making. Together he and {|Waterson|} create folk-rooted music that is patient, intimate, and spacious. Co-produced with {|Portishead|} bassist {|Jim Barr|}, {|Cuckoo Storm|} begins with the cautiously upbeat Undear Sphere, a whimsical choice to introduce the album's primary cast and tonal palette. Light and jazzy, it soon disintegrates into The Leviathan, a cinematic {|Waterson|} vocal showcase of a much darker ilk. {|Crowley|} takes his turn up front on the quietly rambling Watching the Starlings, though the bulk of the set features both artists singing in tandem. Musically, they scale from the radiant chamber pop of Lovers in the Waves all the way down to the entirely a cappella One Foot of Silver, One Foot of Gold, a phrase originally written by {|Waterson|}'s mother that she later spun out into her own song. Although it's their first time working together, {|Waterson|} and {|Crowley|} are two of a kind, building tension, maintaining, and releasing it with a natural rugged grace. ~ Timothy Monger