Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds - Songs My Ruiner Gave to Me

The Guardian 80

(Dusty Willow)

If Gillian Welch lived in Brighton and had once sung with Orbital, she might have turned out like Naomi Bedford (Bedford sang on the duo’s 2001 single Funny Break, before wandering away to folk music). In other words, Bedford’s third album with musical/romantic partner Paul Simmonds (from folk-punks the Men They Couldn’t Hang) sounds far more American south than Sussex, but its transatlantic pull plays blissfully rather than preciously. Bedford’s voice is all rasp, shiver and swamp, while steel guitar strings reverberate warmly on the breeze. Instrumental support comes from Ben Walker on a deliciously countrified version of Cruel Mother, on which the duo’s long-time collaborator Justin Currie from Del Amitri also sings, while the Police’s Andy Summers offers extra bass and guitar (an adolescent Bedford babysat his children before he was famous). A dark setting of Percy Shelley ballad, Young Parson Richards, and original parable Seven Days of Nothing linger longest, lacing folk’s bleakness and beauty into new, striking patterns.