Live recording from recent studio releases finds songwriter grasping for spiritual and emotional truths.
Building on his recent releases Dark Harvest Pt 1 and Pt 2, Dark Harvest Live presents an intimate show from Toronto showcasing a selection these songs. Featuring mainly Nick on guitar and vocals, with sparse backgrounds occasionally on keyboards, the songs are presented in stripped-down form from the album versions. As ever with this format, this works both ways; Radical Tenderness loses its punchy Stax-style horns, but River to Real gains a new tranquillity from the simpler arrangement.
Originally hailing from Cambridge, Nick went on to study music in Southern Spain and Cuba, as well as ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The influence of African music is heard in the rhythms and lyrical shapes on both the albums and, possibly even more so, on this live recording. Alone, with just his guitar and spiritual muse to guide him, he finds space to let his music breathe.
In front of an enthusiastic Toronto crowd – is “We appreciate you!” the most Canadian audience shout-out imaginable? – he quietly takes control of the room with a quiet intensity. While lacking in strum-along sing-songs, Holy Days being about as close as he gets, he warmly encourages audience involvement, calling out lines in advance and introducing songs with a warmth that you only get from a natural performer.
Reacting to the painful loss of his brother and the breakup of his marriage, combined with the onset of Covid and lockdown, and several international relocations, the Dark Harvest albums reflect the pain of this period, his relationship with faith, and the “dark harvest” of opportunities arising from that pain.
The songs about faith won’t be to everyone’s taste, but each to their own. “Amen, we wanna feel it again / Lift us higher in the dark and light the fire in our hearts … we’re ready for the war to end, Lord.” If history taught us anything, it’s that it’ll take more than prayers, mate. That said, lines like “You’ll never find the water when you’re digging in so many shallow wells” are great, and resonate beyond the spiritual.
But when he dives deep into the personal, it’s great, and occasionally more than that. Dark Harvest itself mines Greek mythology to illustrate desire, while Find Me is, in essence, a simple love song, apparently to his ex-wife. More of this might have made for a more engaging album than one that repeatedly returns to spiritual growth.
Overall, Dark Harvest Live succeeds because of its simplicity. At one point I was listening to the album through earphones, ironically while strolling round Cambridge, and this is where the album came into it’s own; intense, musical and engaging. Even when stripped of studio embellishments, the songs are more than capable of standing by themselves, with Mulvey’s ability to hold a room with little more than a guitar and a voice easily apparent. Whether you connect with the spiritual themes will largely determine how you feel about the album, but at its best, when faith and philosophy give way to raw human experience, Dark Harvest Live reveals real emotional depth.
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