Wildfires Polly Paulusma

• 1 Prologue to Paper Cathedral 00:54
• 2 Paper Cathedral 03:48
• 3 Prologue to Mary Louise 01:40
• 4 Mary Louise 04:11
• 5 Prologue to Red Flags 00:57
• 6 Red Flags 05:08
• 7 Prologue to Dunstable Downs 02:00
• 8 Dunstable Downs 03:45
• 9 Prologue to Over and Over 00:56
• 10 Over and Over 04:44
• 11 Prologue to O! My America 00:41
• 12 O! My America 04:04
• 13 Prologue to Eyes on the Road 01:30
• 14 Eyes on the Road 05:31
• 15 Prologue to Wild Swimming 01:39
• 16 Wild Swimming 03:38
• 17 Prologue to Cabin in the Woods 03:59
• 18 Cabin in the Woods 05:28
• 19 Prologue to Scars 01:27
• 20 Scars 04:36
• 21 Prologue to Last Night I Had A Dream 02:05
• 22 Last Night I Had A Dream 04:45
• 23 Prologue to Mad Girl’s Love Song #2 02:05
• 24 Mad Girl’s Love Song #2 05:19
• 25 Prologue to Throw Me To The Dogs 01:00
• 26 Throw Me To The Dogs 04:40
• 27 Prologue to What You Waiting For 00:37
• 28 What You Waiting For 03:29
• 29 Prologue to Tip of my Tongue 00:47
• 30 Tip of my Tongue 04:22
• 31 Prologue to Long Goodbye 01:42
• 32 Long Goodbye 02:38
• 33 Prologue to May Day 00:41
• 34 May Day 04:20
• 35 Prologue to You Are Everything 00:52
• 36 You Are Everything 06:04
• 37 Prologue to Tiny Little Things 01:21
• 38 Tiny Little Things 06:25
• Total Runtime 01:53:48

Info for Wildfires

‘Wildfires’, the sixth studio album from English singer-songwriter Polly Paulusma, is out on February 28th via One Little Independent Records and Wild Sound. Across nearly two hours and six sides of vinyl, folk instrumentation is peppered with spoken-word poetry prologues amid sounds from caves and rivers. Its artful presentation is the hallmark of producer Ethan Johns (Ray Lamontagne / Laura Marling / Ryan Adams), as such, it presents a step change in Paulusma’s until now largely autonomous catalogue.

Having had the privilege of hearing some of these songs in development on her tour with Kathryn Williams in Autumn 2023, this is an album I've been looking forward to hearing. Following its progress of writing and recording on her social media, including writing sessions in caves has been fascinating.

The album is divided into 2 parts, 'Sparks' and 'Embers' and tells a story. "It describes the love we feel as children, the love we give to others through music, the misdirected love we feel as teenagers, the love of lost babies, the love of the dead, and romantic love, the hot fools' gold, the agonising passion, the madness that comes from that entirely interior mental whirlwind, those feelings that burn on the inside, and the more durable slow-burn love of longer term relationships, the love and longing for a divine presence, love from beyond the grave, love from beyond the stars."

Each song is preceded by a prologue, spoken word passages and found sounds recorded on location in churches, down quarries, in caves, by riversides, and against sacred standing stones. One of the songs played in 2023 leads the album. 'Paper Cathedral' was good then but has turned into a richly layered tune with producer Ethan Johns on drums, Jon Thorne on bass and Neil Cowley's piano complementing Paulusma's guitar and voice.

Separating out the individual songs is quite hard as she clearly intends it to be heard as a whole. She says it is "a callback, an ode to the concept album, intended to be listened to in a single, relaxed sitting, allowing for the interconnected stories of love in all its forms to reveal themselves."

But some songs do stand out. 'Paper Cathedral', which was the lead single, 'Mary Louise', which is about the love for a girl gone too soon, and 'Over and Over', looking at how the recorded voice can continue to love long after the singer has departed are both songs that step out of the theme. 'Over and Over's spiky electric guitar and wind sounds especially add an edginess to the subject matter.

A highlight of the Sparks section is 'Cabin In The Woods,' Paulusma's delivery is soft and sits right up close to your ear, as though you were in fact in a small dark cabin. The prologue to that song is the longest of the spoken word pieces with overlapping sounds, music and words. Taking the songs and prologues as single pieces of work (as you certainly should), this is an absolute masterpiece.

The Embers section is if anything more unified. That's not to say the songs are any less. 'Last Night I had a Dream' for instance is as delightful a tune as you could ask for. And 'Throw Me To The Dogs' is a powerful song with moving words which totally undermine the delicate jazzy tune. It's more that it this part of the whole really does need to be heard as a single work.

If there are comparisons to be made it is with Joni Mitchell around the time of Hejira or Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. The atmosphere and the way the music draws you into itself and onto the next part of the story. The interconnected narrative of the songs and prologues is however something quite unique and wonderful.

My advice is don't try and pick out songs to "sample" the album on the dreaded Spotify, you won't feel the benefit but may as I did on first listening find you start at the beginning and all of a sudden 2 hours have passed, and you are at the end of a quite extraordinary listening experience. As Paulusma says "It is a long body of work, far longer than I expected, coming in at 19 songs. I won't hear all this talk that we can't concentrate for more than 30 seconds. We sit down and binge on box sets for hours, compulsively. We can handle long form." She is full of praise for producer Ethan Johns, who believed in her vision and didn't trim the song count. "He ordered the songs to create the journey which you will hear. I remember him reading the list to me over the phone and all the hairs on my arms stood up. To be seen by this huge empath blew my mind. He saw and understood the journey I had undertaken. These are songs I probably could not have written 20 years ago. I just didn't have enough miles on the clock. And it took Ethan to see what I had."

This is a career defining piece of work. Polly Paulsma has turned in some fine albums notably 2022's 'The Pivot On Which The World Turns,' but this is something altogether different. She describes it as "an emotional map of some recent painful jostling, written in my own blood as Joni would have it. They really hurt to make, but it was a good hurt, like pulling out a splinter. Writing them may have saved my life, who knows." I can't see 2025 producing anything even close to this for sheer quality of songwriting, thoughtfulness and intensity of performance. I think album of the year may already be decided. (Tim Martin)

Polly Paulusma, vocals, guitars
Ethan Johns, producer, drums, guitars
Neil Cowley, piano, keyboards
Jon Thorne, double bass

Polly Paulusma
released her debut ‘Scissors In My Pocket’ on Björk’s label One Little Independent to critical acclaim in 2004, supporting Bob Dylan and Coldplay as the album’s reputation grew.

She subsequently released four studio albums and four sister-albums, scored a film soundtrack, founded a record label (Wild Sound) which has supported the work of nine other indie-folk artists, and produced records by other artists such as Harry Harris, Stylusboy and Mortal Tides. She has completed a literature/musicology PhD on Angela Carter’s folk singing (published by Bloomsbury) which her fourth album ‘Invisible Music: folk songs that influenced Angela Carter’ renders in musical terms.

Her fifth album ‘The Pivot On Which The World Turns’ (2022) and its sister-album (2023) began developing a new style that incorporated spoken-word and song as one unit, leading to her extraordinary sixth studio album ‘Wildfires’, produced by the legendary Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Laura Marling, Ray Lamontagne), which brings this work to fruition. ‘Wildfires’ is released spring 2025.

Between writing, recording and touring Paulusma teaches songwriting and poetry for Cambridge University and songwriting for the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, where she is Associate Professor of Song and Literature.

‘vibrant, insightful’ **** — Guardian/Observer

‘intoxicating’ — BBC Radio 2

‘the finest young British female singer-songwriter to emerge over the last 12 months’ **** — Uncut

‘complete, pure and personal’ **** — MOJO

‘the best album to come out of the UK this year’ — KCRW, Los Angeles

‘outstanding’ — Daily Telegraph

‘an enchanting debut of understated, intelligent folk pop’ — Rolling Stone USA

This album contains no booklet.