Lord of the Isles & Ellen Renton - My Noise Is Nothing

A Closer Listen

Have you ever danced to poetry?  If you went out clubbing last year and heard Lord of the Isles & Ellen Renton‘s sublime “Inheritance,” you probably have.  My Noise Is Nothing is like the finest multi-media poetry reading one might ever attend, or the most literate club set.  Ambient segments abound as well, starting with the instrumental opener “Let the Colours Flood In,” an invitation whose very title sets the stage for what is to come.

The writing took place during COVID, when the emotions of the world were at the surface for all to see.  Instead of viewing this as a horrible trend, the Scottish poet Ellen Renton saw it as therapeutic “and even joyful,” penning observations that are now set to music by Lord of the Isles.  Renton’s turns of phrase are incredible, and her kind voice only once rises above a mannered tone, that particular moment crucial to the theme.  We first hear the poet on “A Discovery” atop a bed of blooming synths.  Look again.  Can you find yourself, all the life in you yet, the immaculate brightness …  Rain is falling in the background, while Renton seems dry.   As she falls silent, the synth reactivates: the soul engaged, the mind encouraged.  The precipitation stretches gently into “For a Burning World,” the album’s key track and finest free-standing poem, the first lines of three stanzas excerpted below:

and the sky said to the gunshots, I refuse to hold your sounds …  and the nighttime said to the lonely, I am sorry … and the ground said to the footsteps, I like this tempo …

There is pain in these words, but also comfort.  The music seeps below the language like a fitted sheet, then envelops it like a soft blanket.  Themes repeat: colours, brightness, canvas and paint.  Words become metaphors, metaphors become parables, parables become guidance, a thread in a maze, a torch in a cave.  “Don’t you ache?” asks Renton.  We do.  Conversation and cutlery keep the temperature down as Renton exposes the grievances of an overwhelmed world.  Don’t you ache, don’t you ache, don’t you ache?  Toppling into emotion, the poet becomes the participant.

In the title track, Renton finds peace through reflection, asking questions such as, “How come the water never shows its age?  How come the rock holds its posture like a simple yes or no?”  Renton concludes, “The rain will get rid of my footprints, and my noise is nothing.”  The realization is not diminishing but empowering, a form of letting go.  And then the music, the glorious music, the soul expanding, the heart swelling with the chords.  Her noise may be nothing, but she is something, a colour not muted but vibrant, a sister to the rain that need not fear its wetness.  (Richard Allen)