“Delicate Lies – his beguilingly poetic second solo album – provides ample evidence (if it’s needed) that his music is not a mere side project of a famous author but deserves to be taken seriously on its own merit… ” Folking.comRead the full review at Folking.com
Louis de Bernieres’ musical career began with a banjo ukelele at the age of about eight, which he has always regretted selling. Towards the end of hippy days, he realised that the only way to get a girlfriend was to play the guitar or have a car, so he got both. His brother in law, Chris, took him into Palmer’s of Godalming and tried every guitar in there, and so, at the age of seventeen, Louis bought one for seventeen pounds. Chris taught him to play Anji and The Streets of London. Since then he has owned dozens of guitars, but he still loves that one the most.
Louis learned to play folk and ragtime, then baroque and classical, and then flamenco guitar. He has learned to play several woodwind instruments, and can make sense of anything with frets and strings, including of course, the mandolin. He found the best one in the world in Braga, Portugal, in the 1990s, and calls it Teresa.
In his thirties he developed focal dystonia in his right hand, the fingers packing up because of over-practise. Ever since he has been working doggedly to recover his facility, and has a superstition that he is going to die the day after he finally cracks it.
Louis is a fan of Bach and Beethoven, loves music from all over the world, especially Greece and Latin America, and is influenced by everything he hears. However, his youth coincided with the ascendancy of singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Tom Paxton, Donovan, Paul Simon, Ralph Mc Tell, and Bob Dylan, and these are the voices that he has carried with him all his life, and which have made him into the singer-songwriter that he has himself become. He believes that everything he knows about poetry can and should be made use of in his songwriting, and not surprisingly many of his songs are stories.
He has played with two bands; one called Isis (back in the eighties) and another called Irreparable Brain Damage, which did but one concert in its short career. He was with the Antonius Players for ten years, playing all kinds of music, in between reciting poems. He used to perform in folk clubs back in the day when there were still ancient sailors with huge white beards who sang long ballads about maidens with ‘buttocks so fine’, but not until recently did he feel confident about performing his own songs in public. He was ‘discovered’ by the Bookshop Band, and their support and encouragement helped reduce both his terror and his imposter syndrome, and get him back out on the stage.
Despatches by Louis de Bernières - available now
REVIEWS
“…the writer’s natural inclination for storytelling, through music and lyrics, makes every song a novella in its own right. .. This is a double album with pure soul, heartfelt lyrics, flights of fancy and great trips of the imagination. It’s reflective, pensive, and intelligent… A joy from start to finish.”Julie Williams-Nash, Folk/Tumble
“…a double album made with relish and passion. Bernières’ jagged voice cuts through darkly arresting vignettes full of evocative lyrics. Powerful stuff…”Mojo
Mojo Magazine Review
Famed author he may be, but music - folk songwriters
in particular, apparently - has always been at his core and this is a double album made with relish and passion. Bernières’ jagged voice cuts through darkly arresting vignettes full of evocative lyrics, assisted by telling contributions from Beth Porter, Selina Hawker and David Booth. Powerful stuff, though Leonard Cohen especially seems to have been such an overwhelming influence it often sounds like an adoring homage.
“He’s a novelist who understands the structure of a song, how to build through chorus, recurring motif and phrase, with strategic instrumental passages of acoustic purity… The cover photo suggests the Angels of Mons. But there are no Angels here - only songs with wings.” Andrew Darlington, RNR
RnR Magazine Review
Captain Corelli plays mandolin. So does his
creator - not Nicholas Cage from the movie
adaptation, but Louis de Bernieres, who also plays contrabass, melodica, mandocella, Turkish lute, Balkan clarinet as well as acoustic and electric guitars. He's a novelist who understands the structure of a song, how to build through chorus, recurring motif and phrase, with strategic instrumental passages of acoustic purity.
Where he's Leonard Cohen, Selina Hawker adds the ghosting female harmony. Like Cohen his voice is hypnotic, but less important than the mythic Bardic tales he spins. Across double-CD Despatches he's the troubadour who speaks profound contradictions, travels in foreign lands, and sings a verse in French à la Jacques Brel. He employs the fiction archetypes of Ulysses, Romeo, the Tarot Princess of Wands, whores, gypsies, and the high-concept, enticingly exotic 'Iphegenia'.
He fractures Cinderella's crystal slippers, sings of 'your immaculate body, your vagabond soul and our Lady of Solitude. Women betray him; he in turn, betrays them. Women are faithless; he is unfaithful. No parsley or sage, but lavender and rosemary, olives, wine and bread. Printed lyric 'the boat that we sailed' becomes the ark', investing it with renewed spirituality. The cover photo suggests the Angels of Mons. But there are no angels here - only songs with wings.
Andrew Darlington
"It was a pleasant surprise to me to discover that Louis de Bernieres is a fine lyricist and songwriter as well as an internationally renowned writer..."
Marc Higgins, Fatea Records Magazine
Fatea Records Magazine Review
It was a pleasant surprise to me to discover that Louis de Bernieres is a fine lyricist and songwriter as well as an internationally renowned writer. Doubly so that he is a resourceful musician, playing the edgy electric guitar on the dark opener "St Geoffrey's Day" and mandolin and guitar lute on the smoother "Cinderella Prince Charming and Me". The guitars on "Innocent Angel" have a 60s acid burn, jangling and searing behind Louis and Selina Hawkers' vocals. Phil Manzanera is a fan and clearly, listening to the Roxy like overdriven squalling guitar on "St Geoffrey's Day" the appreciation is mutual. Tracks like "The Romance of Margarita", "Foxes in The Park" and "London Town" although acoustic, have a edge and tension to the delivery as Louis reveals characters and tells stories. De Bernieres' voice has a burr and rasp that gives the reflective "Vagabond Soul" and "Defenceless" gravitas and a Cohen like weight. These are classic acoustic singer songwriter gems, with the encounter on "Olives Wine And Bread" having a real flavour of Leonard.
Sometimes the arrangements are just arresting, on "Lavender And Rosemary" the Cello and piano intro stops time, while the eerie clarinets behind the verse create a different but equally captivating atmosphere behind the rich words. Sometimes the arrangements are snail porridge surreal, "Stab In The Entrails" marries a 60s pop chorus to a raw new wave verse and a Third Ear Band Oboe. Similarly ECM atmospheric and other worldly is "Ipghegenia". Ancient imagery comes to life over an emotional Cello and a wonderfully resonant Turkish Lute and Guitar, creating a sublime soundscape that is a highlight on this two-disc album. Similarly anthemic is the closer "Farewell Rejoice", lyrically twisted like The Handsome Family it has the Chamber feel of a folkier Dead Can Dance. "Louise" is a dose of the kind of slightly off Kilter but infectious Country Folk Punk Rock unheard since John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett's spirited debut.
Consistently strong through the album is the pairing of Louis and Selina, creating tension and atmosphere on songs like "If This Be Love". Lavishly packaged between atmospheric shots of a guitar not rifle touting Louis in his Khaki Angel persona, this is an often surprising album with some real gems. These are for the most poetic love songs, clearly he is proud of his work as chords invite players to play along. An accomplished musician, he is at home on an array of instruments and he plays the mandolin.
"...the expertise he brings to his novel writing is captured in a sense of glory in the songs that make up this widely expressive and intriguing album..."Ian D. Hall, Liverpool Sound and Vision
Liverpool Sound and Vision Review
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is a tendency to forget that song writing, is in effect poetry in motion, it is a building block, a foundation of description, a release of the inner most feelings, and no matter the style, no matter the voice, the poetry, and by virtue of its delivery, stand out as perhaps one of the most expressive forms of heroics we can muster about ourselves; for in that moment of reveal we are exposing our naked soul, we are allowing the relief of humanity to carry us onwards.
We urge strangers to accept they have a talent, never realising that we are more than just a single trick pony ourselves, then given the right encouragement, the circumstances in which our soul transmits the belief around us, we can achieve more than just poetry, we can bring music into the world, we can lay the tunes down of a kind of immortality that we ourselves instigated.
It is in the despatches that we are surprised just how others see that sense of heroism, to be more than just a standby in the story of our life, and it is in Despatches that the listener finds Louis de Bernières, the writer behind Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Birds Without Wings and the short story collection of Notwithstanding is also one who refuses to stand in his own shadow, and as the double album opens up, as tracks such as Cinderella, Prince Charming & Me, The Romance of Margarita, Foxes In The Park, London Town, Stab in the Entrails (Delicate Lies), Don’t Go Out of the Door and Olives, Wine and Bread capture the ear, what the listener is exposed to is the proof of how we can slay the indecision of doubt and suspicion of our own undiscovered talent, and embrace whatever artform we put our mind to.
For in Despatches we are only praised for our heroism in the act of going above and beyond, it is never a place in which our peers can sneer or pour scorn from their disparaging height. Louis de Bernières is a leader in such revolutions of the soul, the expertise he brings to his novel writing is captured in a sense of glory in the songs that make up this widely expressive and intriguing album, his own mention in despatches will fill volumes; he only asks that the listener seizes the opportunity to do the same.