If ever an artist called on the elements in her songwriting, it's Megan Henwood.
The distinguished English singer-songwriter is far too self-deprecating to describe herself as a force of nature, but her third album River reaffirms her unique ability to create roots music of beguiling purity from what's around her.
The most mature work yet of an artist renowned for her intoxicating blend of acoustic and electronic ingredients, River depicts Henwood's lifelong relationship with the rivers and seas that flow into her creativity. Its alt-folk essence is illuminated with shades of sophisticated jazz and low-key electronica, on a record of dark hues and discreet optimism.
“We recorded the main bulk of it quite quickly, in just under a month, when you consider that the last one took us 12 months,” she says. “That one took a bit longer as well because my brother's studio was being built around us as we were recording. But it's all up and running smoothly now.
“But then I went away to celebrate finishing it and wrote another two songs, 'Join The Dots' and 'Rainbows,' and we decided we needed to have them on the album, because they finish the jigsaw of it. I was really happy with what we had, but there was something missing in the more universally-themed ones.”
'Join The Dots,' indeed, became the starting point for a voyage full of smoky ambience, lyrical poise and instrumental scope. Henwood's touch is as delicate as her imagery, in songs written by a self-confessed lover of language who sings words and phrases you just don't hear every day. And who can turn a phrase such as the one in 'Apples,' in which the character regretfully “wipes the tears from her sleeve, it's where her heart used to be.”
The energy for the entire record comes from the water. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, since her dad makes boats. Specifically, the water that flows through Oxford, where this often nomadic soul has almost surprised herself by making her home since 2010. In one song, 'The Dolly,' it's even the star. “I've been here for nearly seven years now. I just love it, it's just got the balance for me. So a lot of this album is based around Oxford and Cornwall and those places that I resonate with.
“I swim in the river a lot, and I grew up by the river, swimming in it, boating in it, looking at the sea. I think I'd find it hard to live somewhere I couldn't submerge myself. It sounds a bit silly, but there's some kind of calming, rejuvenating feeling of being submerged in water that is part of my survival process.”
A genuine troubadour, her travels had her recording in Kathmandu, driving across Europe and Asia and becoming a “full-blown gypsy” for a while, in her own 1972 vintage Airstream caravan. “I spent an amazing summer in it, I went to about 15-20 festivals and then settled in a field just outside Reading,” she recalls. “I had the river on one side and the canal on the other, and it was really lovely. But it was lonely.
“It was just not having people around me, and that's what Oxford brings me. I can be in a field on my own if I walk ten minutes by the river, or I can be in the centre of town. It has everything I need for every kind of mindset, which is constantly changing inside me. But I loved the Airstream so much, and it's still in the family. My dad's about to renovate it.”
Megan will play The Stables tomorrow (October 27), the same day that River is released.
To book tickets click here
