The new single by Jo Beth Young features engrossing, complex arrangements and richly layered textures. Young’s voice floats dreamily over the bass from Jules Bangs and Ben Roberts’ cello. It’s a dreamy soundscape to become lost in. The lushness of the sound is matched by the vibrant woodland in which the video was filmed and the quality of light filtering through the leaves reinforces the ethereal feel.
Young says of the song: “Wolf song is one of the oldest tracks on the album and was originally written on a broken guitar at a friends house. The Wolf I think is very much an exploration of being on the end of a narcissist’s confusing behaviour.There is a conflict of feeling the danger and cruelty of such a character but also the sympathy you might have for them, because ultimately, they are damaged in some way and lonely. Originally the track more of a acoustic, ethereal sound but I shaped it with the brilliant Matt Blackie (Engineer and Producer) who worked with me to add the beats and more electronic elements which is what I wanted to explore on the new album. I was also delighted with Ben Roberts’s incredible Cello playing which is answering the vocals in such a delightful, emotional way that to me, it sounds like the wolf in the song. Jules Bangs’s bass playing is also always sublime. When I was creating and producing the track I think I wanted it to sound a little bit like a modern fairy tale, hence all the harps and other dream like instrumentation and hopefully I’ve achieved that.”
‘Wolf Song’ is the third single to be released from Young’s forthcoming album ‘Broken Spells’, the first under her own name rather than her previous stage names of Talitha Rise and RISE. Young worked on the new music with long-time collaborator Peter Yates (Fields Of The Nephillim) alongside members of her touring band The Abandoned Orchestra. The followup to 2019’s ‘Strangers’ has been a long time coming but worth the wait. Her previous work has been critically acclaimed as have Young’s emotive live performances. Check it out for yourself – you can catch Young on tour in the UK and Ireland later this year – details here.
