"Holloway" by Rebecca Mileham
Review
I have been waiting for over seven months to bring you this review as I first heard her new song "Holloway" when Rebecca Mileham supported John Douglas at The Tin. Now it appears as her new single on Big Plate Records so you all get to hear it.
In a set otherwise dedicated to tracks from her two EPs, ‘Underground' and ‘Rising Tide' this song stood out despite the daunting competition: it really is something rather special.
I try not to foist personal enthusiasms upon you unless I can validate them to some degree & in this case, chatting to some highly experienced gig goers & musical aficionados seated near me, none of whom was previously acquainted with any of her music, it was clear that the song had made its impression on them too.
Musically & thematically closer to the folk music she plays with Liam Vincent & the Odd Foxes (though very much calmer than their take on the artform) compared with her previous solo work, Rebecca taps into the deepest traditions & as we shall see, magic of the English landscape.
Beautifully sung over the most restrained & charming of arrangements (Rebecca plays piano & violin with flugelhorn added by her producer Mark Stevens and double bass by Tim Harries), this epitomises what a tasteful & experienced musician can do with the strongest songs: let them ring out truly without smothering them in unrequired instruments or intrusive production. This is folk at its most natural & connected to its source.
I mentioned the magic of the land: this is not a cat song, but while shooting the video (which can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVcRQzWWJmc), one appeared from nowhere & took its place on film, becoming something of the star thereof. There is a story that while Joni Mitchell was writing "Coyote", one equally suddenly appeared in the snow outside & let her play with it. The provenance of this feline is just as enigmatic but if one writes songs about the deep mysteries of the holloways then manifestations cannot be ruled out I suppose. (Spoiler alert: the same cat is also the main subject of the cover art: photograph courtesy of Yin Chien Yeap and art design by Jonathan Yeap).
Often formed in times beyond collective human memory, these sunken lanes remain in many parts of the world, remnants of trackways both of great length & significant usage and of local utility. Time often feels like it stands still in them & Rebecca captures this perfectly.
While her lyrics tell of the rolling cycles of time, the march of seasons & continuity between lives, the song itself could exist or have been written in virtually any time: it has deep roots and the accident of its creation in 2024 is almost irrelevant: it has no connection to the ephemera of today. It might fit into any compilation of traditional folk songs perfectly and going forward deserves to.
I must however emphasise though that "Holloway" is absolutely not one of those cloying exercises in retro stylings which gives certain folk music a bad name: it is timeless yet fresh as a (winter) daisy and its honesty of spirit shines through in its deceptive simplicity.
There may be a fine line between maximising sentiment (she wishes to "fix broken things") & straying into sentimentality but Rebecca has the skill & confidence to exalt the former & eschew the latter. There will inevitably be those dubbing "Holloway" as her finest solo achievement to date & you won't find me getting into a fight with them over the subject.
