Sons of Town Hall are the most incredible band from the early 1900s recording today. Wearing tattered clothes from the period, they become characters in a drama that unfurls during every performance live or recorded. Transformed from Ben Parker and David Berkeley, they become George Ulysses Brown and Josiah Chester Jones. Borrowing from the adventures of a nomadic octogenarian, Poppa Neutrino, who in the 1990s built a junk raft he named the Son of Town Hall, they set off on their own journey of imagination. Creating characters and experiences based on Neutrino’s story, they have created their own universe on Of Ghosts and God, going back two centuries, establishing a framework for a musical journey through the Victorian era.
Disappearing into the into the characters of Brown and Jones, Englishman Parker and the American Berkeley, write more freely, avoiding any sense of being preachy. Entering a time before any modern conveniences, they find ways to move their audiences through the sheer force and magic of their music. The opening piano notes of ‘Gods’ sets a course through uncharted waters. The addition of flute, oboe, bassoon and strings add to the gentle tone, while the brief vocals, “Leave your fears far behind/Come across the great wide/ Come on open up your eyes/And you will find us,” relocate the sense of time and place.
The transformation continues on ‘How to Build a Boat’. The fragility of their mission to construct a vessel to cross the ocean is matched by gentle guitar phrases. The song builds slowly as they discuss, in overlaid vocals, the instructions and tools needed. The song swells as they discuss “this is how we build it,” striving to cross the water to “cut the lines that bind us.” Having peeled swelling strains back to the basic voices and guitar one realises while they may not be master boat builders, they have their songcraft down cold.
While ‘The Rocky Shores of England’ is ostensibly about leaving for the unknown in America, there is more than a bit about attempting not to be done in by the rush of romance. “They say that water smooths even the ragged people down/ It didn’t take a team of mules to break your heart/It took one man with honour in his veins/ To know how much he needed you again.” The ideas may have an old-fashioned air to them, yet they deal with concepts that never seem to change.
The men who reach the polar regions of ‘Antarctica’ are experienced sailors. Fearing neither the region or conditions, the initially gentle music builds on swirls of strings that hint at the dangers they have seen as the squalls of sound build. “We’re not afraid of anything/ Come flowing ice/ Come howling wind/ No man no beast can turn us round/ No ghost, no god can stop us now.”
‘Sirens’ casts their myths onto the American frontier. Opening with just the voices of Canadian trio The Pairs, these women beckon the two weary travelers with a stream of temptation. Examining the longing and pull of distance on the heart, the struggle of these two seamen is exposed. The revelation of “In My Arms Once More” is the sadness existing within George and Josiah. They may have reached new shores, but the experience has been less than they imagined. “Broken promise, broken bottles/Piled up the floor/Oh, to hold you in my arms once more.“ Closing with the instrumental “Ghosts,” the beauty and lingering sadness both come out in the sound of the piano, flute and cello.
As the Son’s of Town Hall, Ben Parker and David Berkeley have assumed Victorian identities era to explore timeless concepts. Of Ghosts and Gods looks to the past to see what always remains in our hearts.