We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

River Song

from Fruit by Kate Fletcher

/
  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    A startling collection of womanly songs, deeply original & darkly traditional. Beautifully crafted with voice, guitar, oboe, kantele & flute, & expertly produced by Robert Harbron. Wistfulness, sadness, beauty & hope. Quietly stunning.

    "... she is defiantly a solo artist, affording us an intimate glimpse into her own distinctive and private creative world.

    Hers is an unusual and intriguing soundscape, rejoicing in a subtle and unpretentious use of a variety of instrumental colours and timbres...with unobtrusive production by Robert Harbron, there's a homespun, primitive immediacy to the proceedings that's really attractive...

    Kate's songwriting is honest and succinct, understated and refreshingly non-self-indulgent,...The standout tracks for me are highly contrasted: on one hand the disturbing, stark and broodingly strange Midnight, which tells of a modern-day haunting, and on the other the comforting haven of the beautiful Beyond The Silence.

    Kate's work is quietly stunning..."

    Reviewer: David Kidman, Stirrings Magazine.

    Muse Magazine:

    "...inspiring arrangements of traditional songs. My immediate reaction to hearing the music of the Dorset songstress was very pleasurable."...."Kate's haunting vocals result in desolate and beautiful renditions."..."Kate Fletcher has created a down to earth folk album which seems to transport you outside of the confines of your home into the countryside's open spaces and rolling hills."

    Sacred Hoop Magazine:

    Kate Fletcher, a good English name for a good English singer with a considerable amount of good feel for good traditional English music flowing from her first solo CD. Her voice and style come across as very traditional folk, and four of the songs are folk songs, the rest all bar one, are written by Kate herself. She also plays most of the instruments herself too, including one I had never heard of - kantele, a Finnish plucked psaltery.

    The songs range from love songs to songs about the elements and the four directions, spells and witchcraft, Pennant valley (the shambhala of Mid Wales), and the San Bushmen. All the songs are well crafted and played, with no evidence of any self indulgence. Throughout her voice is charming and strong, and I especially like the song she wrote for Pennant, which I first heard on a day of 'wall to wall computing'. It made me stop and wonder what the hell I was doing typing a keyboard all day long.

    Reviewer: Nick Wood.

    The Druid Network:

    The blurb on this CD says it is a 'startling collection of womanly songs' and this is very much the case. Here there are spells and ballads, and each one feels wholly to be the call and cry of the female soul. Each is sung with a softly clear voice, to acoustic instruments (guitar, oboe, kantele), all played and sung by the artist except the mouth bow, played by Corwen ap Broch. There is a medieval element in places, which is where I feel she is most captivating. Other sources of inspiration are Northern European and the Kalahari, but always she is haunting in her expression of emotion - not always raw but ethereal and questioning. It is worth listening to as a whole, and some tracks are worth dissolving into completely.

    Reviewer: Emma Restall-Orr

    Includes unlimited streaming of Fruit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £1 GBP  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 3 Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Singles, Fishe or Fowle, and Fruit. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      £9.74 GBP or more (35% OFF)

     

about

I borrowed this song and an accordion ten years ago from my friend George. I still have them both, I hope he doesn't need them back!

lyrics

RIVER SONG

A young man came to the mouth of the river
Under the bridge a girl was singing
The song she sang had no end or beginning
So the man sat down to listen

The song she sang was the seasons turning
The song she sang was the river flowing
She sang a song of a young man listening
She sang a song of a lovers' meeting

The tune played on to a woman waiting
The tune played on to a baby crying
And it whistled in the wind like a woman dying
And it sprang fronm the ground like a young girl growing

And the young girl came to the mouth of the river
Where every sound was the voice of her mother
She sang a song with a haunting meter
She sang a song that the wind had taught her

And a young man came to the mouth of the river
Under the bridge a girl was singing
And the song she sang had no end or beginning
So the man sat down to listen

credits

from Fruit, released January 1, 2007
George Whitfield arr Kate Fletcher

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch Scotland, UK

Kate was raised on porridge and song in a family of eccentric musicians in Reading. Wrote my first song at 19. Bought a Narrowboat to live on. Everyone said it was a phase. I still have the boat.

Corwen grew up in Dorset with his grandparents who were The Last Of The Victorians. He was instilled with a love of spartan living, open fires and outside toilets.

They make beautiful music together!
... more

contact / help

Contact Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Report this track or account

If you like Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch, you may also like: