Fishing on a Saturday Night
Through twenty-four songs, most of which retrace the lives of 19th century whale-fishers, “Timor Tim”, along with a few extra musicians, pays a tribute to pure folk music. With its sober arrangements, the group reminds us that this music can spring to life anywhere with minimum means and resources, even aboard a Greenland-bound ship, as suggested by some of the songs (“Greenland bound”, “The 23rd of March”...).
There was once (i.e. in the mid-20th century) many an English-speaking folk-singer to reinterpret the stock sea-songs Anglo-Saxon culture abounds with. To name but a few, there were Paul Clayton (the only American in the whole lot), Sam Larner, Albert Lloyd and Ewan Mac Coll. All are now dead and this record is a respectful homage to them. Far from being a mere praise of whaling, these melodious testimonies about the past also raise formidable questions about the crews’ way of life, the risky voyages and of course the future of cetaceans.
As rigging songs (“Haul on the Bowline”, “Sally Rackett”...) and ballads (“The Dreadnought”, “While cruisin’ round Yarmouth”...) unfold, the listener sees the wild ocean in the eye of their mind and feels like putting out to sea while experiencing at the same time the terror aroused by the ocean.
At the end of the record, on hearing the last uncertain notes of a Jew’s harp trying to fight through the sound of the surf, they end up staring at the horizon with a heavy heart, looking for a friendly, promising sail...
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