‘We Turn Ourselves Around for You’ by Laura Cannell.

Taken from RIVERLORE, the third release in Laura’s new ‘Year of Lore’ series of 12 EPs. Every month throughout 2024, Laura creates a new release of music to reflect real and imagined ‘Lores’.

Following SEALORE and EARTHLORE, the RIVERLORE EP holds a trio of songs which take inspiration from river banks, old work horses — when the plough was still the master — and give the visceral feeling of air bubbling up from a watery underworld beneath the calm surface.

The violin and bass recorder echo around the river bends, disappearing in the air across flatlands, with nothing in their path except eel grass and reeds, they resonate on and on, until they get to the harbour mouth. Cannell takes anecdotes and proverbs from 18th century folklore collections, the magic of plantlore and through her music imagines and brings to life the ghosts of marsh ponies who still roam the soft watery meadows and banks.

Of ‘We Turn Ourselves Around for You’, she writes:

‘We turn ourselves around for you. Only for love.
The tide and draw of water, through channels and rivers has long been a metaphor for life. The unavoidable ebb and flow of the human condition. The many branches and paths that connect and disconnect us. We don’t know where they all lead but we instinctually keep going. Love is the thing that makes us put in the hard work, the strength we need can be found on the river bank.’

Find all previous and future volumes of Laura’s ‘Year of Lore’ via her Bandcamp.