Ravenchild

Ravenchild
Studio album by Maddy Prior
Released	1999
Recorded	1999
Genre	Folk
Length	52:08
Producer	Troy Donockley, Nick Holland
Maddy Prior chronology

Ravenchild is the first album recorded by Maddy Prior after she stopped working with the Carnival Band.

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It has a distinctive flavour that we can now recognise as the influence of Troy Donockley. There are frequent sound effects such as wind, echo and washes of synthesiser chords. Alongside 5 traditional songs are ones written or very much adapted by Maddy. In general she is strong on words, but not so memorable with her self-composed tunes. The well-known song "Rigs of the Times" is here updated to offer social criticism of monopolies and faceless international industries. "Rich Pickings" contains the first example of Maddy singing in rap style. By far the best track is "Dance of the Wind". In an exultant extended guitar solo, Troy Donockley sounds like Mike Oldfield. It is surprising that he is not given co-authorship of this track. "Bold Poacher" is a song that Maddy had sung with Steeleye Span on "Parcel of Rogues", but Tim Hart had sung the lead vocals in that version. Maddy admits that she had previously been embarrassed to sing "Twankydillo" because of the silly-sounding title, but once she discovered that "Twanky" means "gin" (as in "widow twanky") she liked it once again. Tracks 3,4 and 5 are continuous. Tracks 3 to 6 have the heading "With Napoleon in Russia". Tracks 7 to 12 have the heading "In the Company of Ravens".

Track listing

"Twankydillo" (Trad) – 2:57
"Bold Poachers" (Trad) – 4:12
"Boney (Shanty: Boney was a Warrior)" (Trad) – 1:51
"Scorched Earth (The Bonny Bunch of Roses)" (Trad) – 4:21
"Loot" (Words: M Prior/ Tune: Trad) – 5:00
"Rigs of the Times" (Words: M Prior/ Tune: Trad) – 4:06
"In the Company of Ravens" (Maddy Prior) – 3:09
"Young Bloods" (Maddy Prior) – 4:09
"The Masts of Morrigan" (Maddy Prior) – 3:42
"Rich Pickings" (Maddy Prior) – 4:32
"Ravenchild" (Maddy Prior) – 3:00
"Dance on the Wind" (Maddy Prior) – 3:56
"Great Silkie of Sules Skerry" (Trad) – 6:56

Personnel

Maddy Prior - vocals
Nick Holland - keyboards, backing vocals
Troy Donockley - Uilleann pipes, electric and acoustic guitars, low whistle, tin whistle, cittern, backing vocals
Terl Bryant - drums and percussion
Nick Beggs - Chapman Stick

gollark: Pedals are uncool.

gollark: So if you have a set of electric cars with small batteries - enough to travel within a city and near it - available for rent, and you don't suffer too much overhead from having to rent them out, that could conceivably be a good method of transport.

gollark: Electric cars are expensive *partly* because they need batteries for hundred-mile journeys, even though most actually won't be this long. And cars are kind of inefficient because most of the time they're left idling.

gollark: Personally, I think that local public transport and short-range intra-city electric cars would be worth considering.

gollark: Batteries' energy density isn't that great right now, sadly.

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