THE UNTHANKS

Image: Rachel & Becky Unthank by Sarah Mason

THE FIRST FULL UNTHANKS ALBUM IN ALMOST EIGHT YEARS FEELS LIKE THE SUN COMING THROUGH THE CLOUDS. LEE FISHER SPOKE TO RACHEL UNTHANK TO FIND OUT WHY

The Unthanks have teased us recently with talk of their upbeat pop album, but to some extent it’s true. “It’s more hopeful and warm, less melancholy, which isn’t to say there’s no deaths! But I think we were drawn to songs that gave us comfort and made us feel more hopeful,” explains Rachel Unthank. “There’s not quite as much outright despair.”

Rachel is open about finding lockdown difficult, the isolation and the lack of opportunity to sing communally. All of this fed into the developing of songs for Sorrows Away. “We were really drawn to songs that gave us comfort or reminded us of singing with other people, that’s such a big part of our lives. We’ve run singing weekends on the Northumberland coast for the last ten years and we’ve sorely missed those, so some of those songs like The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry, we’ve sung on the beach with lots of people, and recording it reminded us of that. Or Waters of Tyne, I never really thought I’d put that on an album but I live right near the Tyne and in lockdown, the kids would go and explore the river and I’d be thinking about how it connected me to friends and family further down in Newcastle or my mum on the coast, and it took on new resonances. Sorrows Away is the sort of thing we’d normally sing together in a pub, with the line “since we’ve learned a new song to drive sorrows away”. When we decided to record it, it made sense of all the other songs.”

WE WERE REALLY DRAWN TO SONGS THAT GAVE US COMFORT OR REMINDED US OF SINGING WITH OTHER PEOPLE, THAT’S SUCH A BIG PART OF OUR LIVES

Although Sorrows Away is as ambitious and lush in its arrangements as Mount The Air, it didn’t start that way. “It always come from the songs. We actually always think we’ll not use a massive band because it’s ridiculous to tour! Really fun and really expensive.” She explains. “Becky and I would get together and practice our harmonies in the woods! Then we’d usually bring those songs to Adrian, and he dreams up all sorts of wonderful arrangements.”

Although there have been lots of Unthanks releases in the nearly eight years since Mount The Air, the band do consider Sorrows Away to be the next ‘proper Unthanks album’, “where we sit and think about songs that we want to sing and the stories we want to share with people” and it includes a couple of songs that have been part of Rachel’s life for a long time. The Sandgate Dandling Song appears in a gorgeously arranged form: “Adrian [McNally] says it’s the first song he ever heard me sing, he’s always been a bit obsessed with it, and I’ve always sung it unaccompanied.” And there’s Sorrows Away, which on their recent tour elicited an audience singalong reaction that felt like “an incantation…we were all singing our sorrows away. And people really meant it as well. People are looking for that, audiences are coming with open hearts and wanting to connect. The first couple of times we did it, I burst into tears and couldn’t sing any more.“

The Unthanks release Sorrows Away on 14th October. They play The Fire Station, Sunderland on Wednesday 12th and Queen’s Hall, Hexham on Sunday 23rd October. www.the-unthanks.com