‘A raw, cohesive whole that demands your full attention’: James Waudby’s debut solo album, On The Ballast Miles
‘LIKE LIVE PEFORMANCES’: James Waudby has released On The Ballast Miles
By Nick Quantrill
When the definitive list of Hull’s finest songwriters is drawn up, James Waudby will undoubtedly take his place at the top table.
Formerly the front man of Salako, the band toured with US giants Pavement, were signed to Jeepster Records and caught the ear of John Peel.
Various musical projects and bands followed, most notably being Horse Guards Parade, but leap forward and James’s anticipated debut solo album has finally been released.
On The Ballast Miles might come as a surprise to keen followers. Rather than the off-kilter indie-pop that has been his trademark through the years, it’s an album informed and directly inspired by the region and its landscape, starkly recorded and featuring a lone guitar and vocal.
“I don’t think it’s a new direction, as such,” James says. “I suppose it takes on all the things I was always interested in. When you’re doing music with other people, you have to take all the ideas in and work together. But when it’s just you, you can distil it to the unfiltered core of what interests you.
“I suppose a lot of it is the influences from when I was younger and first started listening to music, like Bert Jansch and Neil Young, that kind of acoustic guitar finger-picking stuff. I’ve always brought it into the other music, but because all the other stuff is around it, you maybe don’t notice it so much.”
On The Ballast Miles is a gritty collection of folk songs filtered through James’s distinctive voice and viewpoint, all concerned on some level about identity and how we construct it in a meaningful way. It’s a theme highlighted in The Last of Your Kind, a song about someone who feels that although he hasn’t changed, the world around him has, not least as traditional industry disappears.
It’s a theme explored further on Double Dutch, the closing track on the album which considers the effect of the coastline crumbling into the sea.
“I think it means the whole region’s in flux,” James says. “There’s that sense of the land going, but also the people going with it. There’s that whole idea of, if you haven’t got a home, do you need to be linked somewhere to have those feelings about the area?”
It’s clearly something James thinks about a lot in relation to his lyrics. Raised in Hull, he’s long set the city’s successes and failures to music. The new album’s geography is slightly different, but the same observation of human behaviour remains a constant.
“It’s about the land, the whole album has that in it, really.,” he says. “There are lines within the album about how people are related to the land. The final song has the line about the children in the land having it within their skin. It’s the flat landscape. You can hear it in people’s voices and see it in their mannerisms. There’s no ups and down, it’s straight down the line.
“We’re not part of this, we’re not part of that. You do put your foot out into these various things, but you’re always coming back and I think Hull and this whole area is very much like that. It’s apart, but close enough to become part of something else, but able to withdraw when it wants to.”
Very much in the tradition of much folk music, the album introduces instrumental songs into the mix. It’s clear that North Landing and Clear Stream Shuffle, about Flamborough and East Ganstead respectively, don’t require a vocal. The titles may be literal, but the rhythm of the music fills in the blanks and adds a further layer to the record. More than anything, it allows James to tap into something primal and instinctive.
“Wherever you go in the region, there’s nothing stopping you,” says James. “It’s that straightness, that flatness, that getting out into it and being on your own. That sense of getting away from the society which we’re living in, which is just hideous. I think I’m getting that optimism back, though, I don’t want to not have optimism. I just love the area and the feeling it gives me when I’m out there.”
Explaining the recording process, there are echoes of the land and its people there too.
“There are fumbled bits and there are the odd notes that aren’t quite there, but I quite like that as well,” says James. “It’s not perfect, as the place isn’t perfect, as nothing is perfect. I wanted it to sound like I was singing it to you from the speaker, like I’m in the room.”
Engineered and recorded by long-term Salako collaborator, Luke Barwell, they’re very much on the same page.
“I didn’t want to do any overdubs, so they are like live performances,” says James. “It’s very much like, this is it, this is it raw. These are the songs and there’s no sheen on them. I didn’t want them over-produced. We’d just work through a couple of takes and record three or four songs at a time when I had them.”
The overall result is an intense album that doesn’t pull any punches, a collective and cohesive whole that demands you sit down properly and give it your full attention. Ahead of its release, BBC Radio 6 Music picked up on it with some early play and initial reviews in national music magazines have been uniformly positive. Pre-orders were shipped out to America, Italy, Germany and other countries. It’s finding an audience and bodes well for the future.
“It’s not that I’ve started again, I’ve just continued writing,’ James says. “I always have done, even since when I was kid. That’s what it’s about for me. It’s always about the process, that sense of creation. I suppose it’s where you choose to channel those songs. The interest is coming through the reviews and radio play rather than what I’ve done before, which is nice, but I just want to make another album.”
On The Ballast Miles was released on January 14 (vinyl, CD and download). To order, visit https://jameswaudby.bandcamp.com/album/on-the-ballast-miles