The Wainwright Sisters

Songs in the Dark

[PIAS]

Another combination of talents from the Wainwright and Roche families has Martha W and Lucy W R duetting on the songs they learned from their mothers and father in a collection that is quite breathtakingly lovely. These are, more often than not, real lullabies, both traditional and contemporary, given beautiful spare arrangements and sung with depth of feeling, instinctive musicality and not a little wit. The promotional lead track is a version of El Condor Pasa that quite outdoes Simon and Garfunkel in the boldness of its harmonising, while the pair's reading of End of the Rainbow, from Richard and Linda Thompson's classic I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight album, contrives to be both bleaker and sweeter than the misanthropic original.

Surprisingly, perhaps, for a collection so concerned with motherhood, male songwriters are well represented, with Willie Nelson (Dusty Skies) and Townes Van Zandt (Our Mother the Mountain) in the mix alongside Loudon Wainwright III, his own well-known Lullaby joined by the later Screaming Issue, co-written with Lucy's Aunt Terre, and both up there with the best of the set. He must be a proud dad, listening to his girls all growed up and sounding so fine. As the shepherd says: your ram is half your flock.

Keith Bruce