Written by Spike Sidor

NOTHING IMPORTANT

Richard Dawson Nothing Important Review Album Cover

RICHARD DAWSON

2014 FREAK-FOLK/NOISE-FOLK

Nothing Important is an important studio record by Newcastle folk musician Richard Dawson. To say it’s important as a generality is deceiving, it’s important to me, a favorite. To the vast majority its disgustingly dissonant, an indecipherable mess, a pretentious pile of noise that could only be truly enjoyed by the posh artistic pretender looking to gain clout by liking something so obviously obtuse. But for me, and perhaps for the few who read this and experience Nothing Important as a result, it is a revelation. I’ve always been a fan of folk, spending much of my youth in the back of my Dad’s Volvo with early Dylan on the speakers and in our throats.  Of course tastes evolve and as my appetite for the anti-melodic grew I set out looking for artists that incorporated the earnest story-telling and vocals of folk with the cathartic clangor of genres not fit for polite company.

I spent years walking up and down the freak folk isle of the music world, sampling for all heights of the shelf, finding plenty to love but nothing that was quite the flavor profile I had in mind. Yet somehow it took me till 2019 to discover Richard Dawson’s music, initially through his fantastical medieval, and mostly pleasant, Peasant. Richards style is immediately ear catching, he blends influences from all eras of folk, spoken word, and religious music, and makes it entirely his own. His guitar is unlike any I’ve heard before, partially due the fact that he broke it and haphazardly repaired it, and from his finger picking playing technique that I would describe as necessary in its forcefulness. He plucks each string so hard it pops and reverberates in a way that isn’t simply louder, even on studio material I worry each new note might result in a broken string.

Richard’s voice is a curio unto itself as well, he sings in a North English accent at all spectrums of high and low; bellowing, whispering, and yelping while wrapping his voice around his chaotic compositions to squeeze melody out of seemingly nowhere. Needless to say I had to check out his back catalogue, and thus Nothing Important and I became acquainted. It is the last of three albums that make up Richard’s earliest recorded works. Marked by lo-fi production and topically modern stories told in a traditional English folk style. Consisting of only four tracks, an instrumental intro, a noisy feedback outro, and two hulking sixteen minute mammoths stuck in between. The first listen wasn’t as romantic as one might think, as I imagine it will be for many, it was a shocking whirlwind and at its conclusion I didn’t know what to make of it. What separates Nothing Important from Richard’s other projects isn’t just a disturbing guitar, it’s the utter mayhem. He sounds like a possessed preacher, at one moment calmly delivering his sermon the next shaking and raving, intoxicated by the subject at hand; wrangling his guitar like an Appalachian pastor with a snake.

The opener, Judas Iscariot, shrieks into existence, a long instrumental song with loads of frenetic energy and progressions. Lulls lead into sputtering notes that come across as near random all on top of a soft bed of guitar feedback, regardless of some sections’ bizarreness it leads back to the riff of its main and most coherent passage. This transitions into the title track, and first of the epics. Richard tells short tales of distorted fragmented memories. Being born by Caesarian section, his dead uncle Derek, and his Dad being injured on a Soccer field, the subject matter is as broad as life. 

Petrified on the back of a pedalo in the Balearic Sea off Alcudia
I can see the ghost of my uncle Derek waving to us from the beach
Gently drifting out of reach
The telephone receiver swinging by its cord
A glass of broken beer expanding on the lino

The imagery is terrific throughout but it can be easy to get lost within the regional colloquialisms and the rapid shifting of topics on the third and fourth verses but you can easily sit back and let the climb of each verse into its chorus create sonic satisfaction. I love the desperation of the ending as Richard painfully laments the frailty of the mind, the absurdity of memories as he can clearly visualize childhood karate trophies better than the faces of the ones he loves. It’s this kind of original, relatable, and above all poetic lyricism that makes Richard one of today’s greats. Which is continued on track number three, The Vile Stuff. As the title implies the song revolves around Richard’s teenage misadventures with the ubiquitous depressant, alcohol. It begins with a feverish instrumental intro similar to the opener until it is interrupted by the only percussion of the whole album, steady hand claps, then Richard himself. It’s intense from here on out, everyone in the bar is banging their mugs whilst standing at attention to our manic narrator, spinning a yarn all too familiar. Every line is a quotable and his delivery on each gives them an even greater life. 

Outside the chip shop Thaddeus Wagstaff fractures my cheekbone;
3 empty cans of Castlemaine XXXX
Go rolling down my trouser leg
Blood, snot and curry coalesce in the corners of my nails
My friends drifting away from me

The way Richard digs deep and howls “3 empty cans” is pure mad brilliance. The star of the show is the chorus, the frenzy dies down for it to build back in a few short words; when he hits the word vile, all hell breaks loose.

I only drank a few little droplets
I only took a tiny draught of the vile stuff

I find it impossible not bang my fist on the nearest sturdy object and shout along, the rawness compels you to action, strain along with Richard, feel the emotions flow through your bones. When it’s finished there is a palpable exhaustion, not just from the listener but you can feel Richard taking a heavy breath, covered in sweat. The closing song, Doubting Thomas, is a needed break, the cool down from the wild sprints. As such it’s some low feedback and sparse notes, not the head turning genius of what’s come prior, but needed the same. Nothing Important is so many things. Simple and yet complex, multifaceted, always a lyric or passage to grow more attached to. Refined yet barbaric. An abrasive racket and yet its beauty resonates with me long after listening. Give it a listen, please, you may not like it, but it accomplishes what all the best art does, stops you dead in your tracks.

FAV/10

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