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Taken from Leader Post (Sep 2, 2014)
Plant returns to his musical home
'Besotted' by loves, friendships singer's new album celebrates human connections
by Lynn Saxberg, Postmedia News
Robert Plant performing with Band of Joy in 2010 (above) has created
a new album with another group of musicians, the Sensational Space Shifters.
Photograph by: Getty Images, Postmedia News |
Robert Plant has been around the world a few times in recent years, either off on his own adventures or touring with other artists. But when the rock god decided to make some new music, he went back home to England and rounded up some of his favourite musicians.
Not Jimmy Page or John Paul Jones, his old mates in Led Zeppelin, but some of the guys he worked with on his last original album, 2005's Mighty Rearranger.
Their latest creative reunion produced a new band name - the Sensational Space Shifters - and a superb new Plant album, entitled lullaby and ... The Ceaseless Roar. It's due for release on Sept. 9. After Plant's 2007 Grammy-winning collaboration with Allison Krauss and his 2010 Band of Joy album, it's the first time in almost a decade he's written some new songs.
He and the Space Shifters have conjured up a hypnotic mélange of worldly styles. Plant's still-incredible voice soars atop a soundscape that recalls the best of Zepdistilled delta-blues updated with a loop through the Middle East and North Africa. Despite the far-reaching vibe, Plant insists the album marks a return to his old stomping ground.
"It was time to come back to the Misty Mountains," he said. "It's about coming back and digging in again and then using a lot of traces of music that can be found in Britain."
Inspiration also came from the band which includes Justin Adams on djembe and guitars, John Baggott on keyboards, loops and moog, bassist Billy Fuller, drummer Dave Smith, banjo and guitar player Liam Tyson and Gambian griot Juldeh Camara.
"It's the most prolific and freethinking bunch of guys I've worked with," Plant says. "These guys come from the Bristol urban scene - Massive Attack, Jah Wobble, the Womad Festival. It's a very fluid and very, I suppose, light-footed assembly of spirits really, and it just dances through everything."
Themes of love, loss and celebration permeate the new songs, which also include a reworked Leadbelly cover and a mystical take on the traditional tune, Little Maggie. The first single, Rainbow, vows to supply the rainbow after a lover's storm, while House of Love laments a lost love and Pocketful of Golden seeks peace in walking alone.
"Artistically, I love relationships and friendships," Plant says. "I'm besotted by them. I spent a lot of time travelling around using music as my compass and it's taken me to various places with various people. I write a celebration and a reflection of the journey along the way."
Writing lyrics has often been a challenge for Plant. this time, however, it was a breeze, he says.
"I have a lot to say and I write a lot, so I guess I was scared (in the past) or I didn't know how to pick the lock to open the door that gave me this record. But now the door is open and everything is flowing beautifully," says the charismatic frontman, who still wears his hair in flowing ringlets.
At 66, Plant appears to have no intention of fading into his sunset years. "I think I've got a long way to go before I go back to Nashville and start knitting a sweater," he quipped at one point. What keeps him thriving is work, of the musical variety.
"I was joking with Peter Gabriel recently about workload stuff," he says. "A lot of my peers think I must be absolutely nuts because I do work a lot. But I have a great time doing it and I'm in really great company.
"I see the way that people like Neil Young work, and the guys that have been around a while. I think that's the place to come from, just keep reinventing ... as long as I've got something to talk about that fits against a pretty chord progression, I shall write songs, and this most recent collection of songs is very personal to me and it comes form a place I could never have imagined arriving at or passing through."
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