THE ENGLISH TAPE, SIDE 2 TRACK 5

THE ENGLISH TAPE, SIDE 2 TRACK 5
BRIDGET ST JOHN – “Ask Me No Questions” (from the album Ask Me No Questions)
Eight-minute hypno-folk, repetitive and heavily sedated: it’s incredibly fragile and pretty, and there’s an attractive thickness to her voice (Nico Drake, anyone?). But that’s not why it’s here. Four or so minutes into the song, the music starts to fade, and in its place swell up the sounds of middle England: birds singing, dogs barking, church bells, the rustle of trees in country lanes. For a whole minute-and-a-half, they replace the song: it’s surprising, hokey, and absolutely beautiful. Right now I can think of no other piece of music which gives me such a powerful, physical sense of time and place.

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