DL's Media/Reviews
ANGE HARDY 'ESTEESEE'
Ange Hardy’s fourth studio album is a folk project inspired by the life and works of the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The album is called ‘Esteesee’ and is pronounced ‘Ess-Tee-See’ (forming the initials of the poet S.T.C.) Her previous albums were about her ending up in a foster home at the age of 11 where she was later moved on to Trull children's home in Taunton. A series of events at the children’s home resulted in her running away and finding herself hitchhiking around England and Wales, eventually a driver offered her a seat in a truck across the waters to Ireland. She took it. For four months at the age of 14 she lived homeless on the streets of Ireland. Firstly in Dublin, on the doorstep of a shop called Envy in Grafton Street, and then later in Galway. This was where she found the love of music.
To read more of her story go to:
These 14 new folk songs were written in January 2015 and they include songs inspired by Coleridge’s relationships with friends, family and acquaintances, verses of his poetry set to music, new songs inspired by his characters and stories, and even tales based on fragments of his dinner conversations.
Ange’s music has always been deeply personal and often autobiographical. This project sees Ange stepping outside the familiar comfort zone of her own experiences and into the life of another.
As well as featuring the talents of Ange Hardy on guitar, traditional whistle, harp, and vocals the album is complemented by a roster of world class folk musicians including Steve Knightley (‘Show of Hands’) providing guest vocals, the spectacular Patsy Reid (founding member of ‘Breabach’) on fiddle, viola and cello, Lukas Drinkwater on double bass, Archie Churchill-Moss on diatonic accordion, Jonny Dyer on the piano, Jo May providing percussion, Andrew Pearce on the drums, Kate Rouse as the damsel with the hammered dulcimer, Steve Pledger on backing vocals, and poetry readings from David Milton (the Watchet town crier) and the wonderful Tamsin Rosewell (broadcaster and artist).
Why Esteesee? Coleridge disliked his name. By the age of 16 he had started referring to himself using his initials, S.T.C., and he would often write them phonetically as ‘Esteesee’. He was a poet perhaps best known for writing ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. And ‘Kubla Khan’. He was friends with William Wordsworth and the pair are credited as being founders of Romanticism.
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The Foster – Mother’s Tale – This is a tale of a baby found in the woods, his salvation, his corruption, his imprisonment, his escape, and his ultimate decline to savagery.
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My Captain – Once the ship had left the harbor in the Ancient Mariner it seemed as though their fate was sealed and everything that followed on the voyage was inevitable; but the sense of freedom, as they felt it, was nothing more than an illusion.
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The Curse of a Dead Man’s Eye – the dark drone of those horrific nights at sea. A voice narrating as if in a zombie state of despair. The gruesome imagery of being reduced to the desperate state of drinking your own blood to quench your thirst just enough to cry out loud and more…..
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William Frend – While Coleridge was an undergraduate at Cambridge, UK, one of the tutors at the college, William Frend, was put on trial for publishing a leaflet condemning much of the liturgy of the Church. There’s a fabulous story that during that trial Coleridge applauded raucously from the balcony, deliberately to enrage the judge, before quickly switching places with a one-armed man who was blamed instead.
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Friends of Three – Coleridge’s relationship with William and Dorothy Wordsworth while living in Nether Stowey was a huge part of his life. They would walk the Quantock Hills and around Exmoor together, talking and dreaming.
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Kubla Khan – The spoken poem is read by Tamsin Rosewell. Ange arranged the music of the damsel with the dulcimer to accompany the words. Romantic rivers and cavern caves.
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George – George was Coleridge’s older brother, and one who was often leaned upon. Undoubtedly, Coleridge was a friend who placed a heavy burden on those around him. Much of the sentiment of this song is based on letters between Coleridge and his friends and family.
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Pantisocracy – The word ‘Pantisocracy’ means ‘equal or level government for all’. The idea was that friends Robert Southy, Robert Lovell and Coleridge would move to the banks of the Susquehanna in America to start a better life. The practicalities of it, though, meant that Southy and Coleridge would end up unable to agree whether they should settle by the waters of America or Wales! Pantisocracy collapsed.
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Epitaph on an Infant – This is a poem set to music. Ange sat down with a harp and played while reading the poem and it fell together instantly. Hope and optimism within the words of the second verse gives the knowledge that heaven awaits.
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Might is in the Mind – Coleridge was a celebrity of his time and the anecdote that formed in this song was from a book entitled “Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”. Coleridge credits his hearing of this story to the American painter Washington Allston who painted the portrait of George on page 19 of the book.
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Mother You Will Rue Me – When he was 8 years old Coleridge ran away from home following an argument with his older brother Frank in which Coleridge lunged at him with a knife. He fled and hid at the bottom of a hill by the river Otter, reading prayers from a shilling book, hiding beneath a thorn bush and watching the calves play in the field. The town crier was called in to rally the search party. In later years Coleridge confessed to thinking, with inward and gloomy satisfaction, how miserable it must have made his Mother.
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ESTEESEE – To me, this is the most beautiful song on the album because it reaches into your heart with the sense that angels are protecting you. ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’ (or ‘The Black Paternoster’) is a childhood prayer that is catalogued as Roud Folk Song number 1704. In a letter to Thomas Poole in 1797 Coleridge wrote: “This prayer I said nightly, and most firmly believed the truth of it. Frequently have I (half awake and half asleep, my body diseased and fevered by my imagination), seen armies of ugly things bursting in upon me, and these four angels keeping them off.”
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Along the Coleridge Way – The Coleridge Way is a path that had led Ange to discover Coleridge. A 51-mile footpath from Nether Stowey to Lynmouth, it crosses both the Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park and can be completed over six consecutive days. It passes Ange’s front door and the church where she was married. You can visit the website: www.coleridgeway.co.uk – to discover it for yourself. This song is Ange’s way of saying “thank you” to Coleridge.
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Elegy For Coleridge – Coleridge wrote his own epitaph. Ange used elements of it in a triumphant elegy.
Ange’s songs bring out the true spirit of folk, the wayfaring sea and the life of one whose work has been given more notice. To find these and the many other art works of Ange Hardy go to: http://www.angehardy.com/shop.
To find out more about Ange and her gift of music go to:
Denise L. @DL7855