June Tabor - Aqaba (12 tracks) +Album Reviews

June Tabor - England's best folk voice

Cowboy Bill | Omaha, NE USA | 05/29/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This might not be Ms. Tabor's most popular recording, but it's by far my favorite. The tone of the entire CD is quiet and melancholic -- the arrangements are simple, a perfect setting for Tabor's magnificent voice.I'm not necessarily one for sentimental songs, but tunes on this album like "The King of Rome" (about a poor man and his prized homing pigeon), "Where Are You Tonight?" (a plaintive cry to a lost love) and "Seven Summers" (about a child who looks forward to summer but misses out due to inclement weather) just break my heart. Just as good are the traditionally English-sounding numbers like "The Reaper" and "The Banks of Red Roses," as well as an unforgettable Jewish song, "Mayn Rue Plats" (I'm not sure what it's about but the melody is haunting). And the title track about Lawrence of Arabia's dying moments is killer.Seriously, I have had to buy this album three times because every time I lend it out it doesn't come back. And I don't mind -- I love turning people on to this outstanding disk."

A Brilliant showcase for a stunning voice

KSG | New York, NY United States | 12/18/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"June Tabor's vibratoless voice will haunt you. It seems to come from a well deep inside her soul. This collection of songs is hard to classify, she sings 10,000 Maniac's Verdi Cries and then moves onto a 19th century Yiddish dirge about the plight of sweatshop workers. The instrumentation is sparse, sometimes jazz, then folk and then silent as she sings acappella. At times I think of June Tabor as a troubadour and then she becomes a jazz crooner. I highly recommend her to fans of Joni Mitchell."

Contemplating the world

SuZen | NJ United States | 09/27/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard June Tabor sing the music of this album live, at a little folk venue near my town. The place holds about 200 people, but there were about 400 packed in to hear her, and the entire audience (including me) was rapt. With only a sparse piano accompaniment, she was spellbinding. These are moody, quiet songs but June's voice and presence hold your attention completely. June is one of very few artists of folk music origin who can sing both traditional and contemporary tunes on the same album with equally high quality. You don't have to be a folkie to love this music."

All my life turns on you...

Marius Cipolla | 10/29/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Isn't she wonderful? The title track is the one that gets everybody and it is really an amazing piece of music. It captures the stark essence of T.E. Lawrence much better (in my opinion) than the movie soundtrack by Maurice Jarre (although that is a splendid score, it seems to have little to do with Lawrence the man).

This album, almost unclassifiable due to its varied content, is an enduring classic, an intimate portrait of one of England's great folk singers. Highly recommended!"

The last English folk masterpiece??

mianfei | 04/14/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After a long hiatus during the 1980s, June Tabor decided to permanently abandon her career as a librarian as that decade drew to a close.

Although she had shown herself a distinctive interpreter of songs both traditional and modern on her previous three full-length studio recordings Airs and Graces, Ashes and Diamonds and Abyssinians, it was only with this amazing album that Tabor really showed herself to be the most singular of vocal talents.

On "Aqaba", Tabor's voice remained recognisable from the early work of "Airs And Graces" but with age it had in a strange but fitting way grown deeper and very much darker. From the first track, she sounded sad yet always honest about what she was saying, most clearly on the beautiful, twinkling "Where Are You Tonight, I Wonder" and the amazing Martin Simpson-embellished title track, which as a piece of folk minimalism with only a few guitar notes and a soft bowed double bass. The jazzy Yiddish worksong "Mayn Rue Platz" showed her embracing the chamber jazz that would dominate her 1990s work, whilt the 10,000 Maniacs cover "Verdi Cries" was almost equally dark and truly despairing - not for fans of synthesised teen pop.

The opener "The Old Man's Song" stands up to these two pieces, whilst on the untrained a capella "Searching For Lambs" showed Tabor to have not lost the beauty of "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" off her first album.

Dark, and folksy and jazzy by turns, the depth and sadness of June Tabor's contralto voice turned "Aqaba" into the last masterpiece of the English folk revival began by Anne Briggs 25 years before this came out. Tabor was to produce some winderful work on Angel Tiger and Against The Streams, but that was totally outside the folk realm. Thus "Aqaba" stands as the last monument to the power and intimacy of English traditional folk songs."

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