Seth Lakeman, Fibbers, York, on February 24 (From York Press)

Seth Lakeman, Fibbers, York, on February 24

11:36am Friday 17th February 2012 in Music news and reviews By Charles Hutchinson

YOU may have blinked and missed Seth Lakeman’s latest album. Tales From The Barrel House came and went last November, released in a limited edition of only 10,000 and made available exclusively through Seth’s website, sethlakeman.co.uk

However, on the first day of sale, demand was so high that the site crashed, and by Christmas the album had sold out.

Now, however, the Tavistock folk singer, songwriter and fiddler is to give it a national release on his Honour Oak Records label from April 2, preceded by a 14-date February and March tour that includes a York show at Fibbers next Friday.

Tales From The Barrel House, his sixth album, was a “different kind of project” for Seth. The very essence of a solo work, it involved him writing all the tunes, playing all the instruments and producing and mixing the album, in a return to the pared-down style of Kitty Jay, the £300 kitchen-table album that won him a Mercury Music Prize nomination in 2005.

“I’ve been really keen for some time to get right back to the basics of Kitty Jay,” says Seth.

“To be blunt, this is the type of album I could never have done with a major label. I’m grateful for having worked in some of the best-equipped studios and with top producers, but with this record I’ve felt completely free to do my own thing for the first time in years.

“It’s the most honest record I’ve ever made.”

In a nutshell, the project was one man, one microphone.

“I made the album in an unusual place, in workshops in an old Victorian heritage centre [the Barrel House of the title], and what I did this time was make a conscious decision effort to pick a subject I was interested in.”

He decided to explore the history of West Country artisans. “I was drawn to the skills that represent where I live in Devon and the work shown at the heritage centre,” says Seth.

For one song, he dug particularly deep into those roots. “I recorded it in a disused copper mine, where they retain a track and an electric train that takes you in and out,” he says. “It was very dark, completely dark in fact, but ‘vibey’. I had a recording engineer and a sound field microphone and we had a generator that we took down into the deepest chamber and away we went for two hours of recording one evening.

“We went in when it was light outside, came out when it was dark, and it gave a great atmosphere to the song.”

The song in question is More Than Money, the album’s opening track.

“It’s based on a traditional song, The Miner’s Lament. I heard a guy called Nic Jones’s version [the same Nic Jones who lived in York for many years]’, and I changed it quite a lot though it has the same template,” says Seth “It’s now much more driving and far more industrial.”

The rest of the record was recorded at the Barrel House in a week and a half in the cooperage, old smithy and workshops at the ghostly Morwellham mining port on the Devon bank of the River Tamar.

Impromptu objects came in handy for percussion, be they bits of old iron or discarded tools found down the mine and around the workshops.

“I used an anvil for Blacksmith’s Prayer and bellows for the breath of the blacksmith, and elsewhere I used a pickaxe, a tool sharpener as a shaker and chains for a tambourine. It all worked very well,” says Seth.

“But I didn’t plan it, I just went in there and it was spontaneous, just creating sounds with whatever there was.”

On tour, Seth will be joined by his regular band, who face the challenge of turning the album’s solo songs into group works.

“We’ve spent three or four days doing that and we’ve been able to prepare most of the new songs to play live,” says Seth. “The percussionist, Cormac Byrne, has had to really think outside the box. He’s had to find ways to replicate percussive sounds from the scrapyard.

“We’ve got all sorts on tour, exhaust pipes; a cymbal over a snare for the crashing drumming sound; an old Salvation Army drum that we found in a junk shop jumble sale in Bournemouth for £20, for a very sonic sound.”

As he prepares to re-launch the album, one question remains: why did Seth choose initially to release Tales From The Barrel House in such a low-key manner?

“The main reason was that I think it’s quite a niche recording with one microphone and a working method that was unconventional, so it was more of a tentative step and the way we recorded it dictated that.

“But it sold so well, and as we’re going out on the road again, it seemed silly not to re-release it. Besides, people are selling it on eBay for £30 already,” says Seth.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be so well received, because it’s very left field, but 10,000 copies were sold, which in this day and age we’re very happy about, as there was no press, and it was just publicised through the website. It will be interesting to see how the wider net reacts to it, now that we’re using Proper to direct the re-release.”

The album may be rooted in the past but it has struck a chord in present-day Britain. “I think past and present go hand in hand,” says Seth, who wants his listeners to be immersed in this living history by hearing the stories of the people who inhabit the songs.

“I’d like them to experience the atmosphere in which the album was recorded, as I’m seeking to pay homage to the miners, sailors, skilled craftsmen and artisans, hard grafters who helped shape this landscape.

“I’ve picked people from the past but the songs reflect on today and on skills that have been forgotten, and that maybe young people don’t appreciate any more.”

• Seth Lakeman plays Fibbers, York, on February 24. Box office: 01904 651250.