Oddfellows Casino

An English gem – as whimsical and bittersweet as Robert Wyatt or Talk Talk, but with edgier, more epic production. And the song We Will Be Here is an anthem in waiting. Marcus O’Dair


The Raven’s Empire carries with it a mystical belief that the humdrum world hides within it something stranger. David Bramwell, the songwriting brains behind collaborative project Oddfellow’s Casino, does not own a television. Nor he does he read newspapers, listen to the radio or have much to do with any other forms of global communication. That might help explain why The Raven’s Empire, the otherworldly, death-themed follow-up to Pickled Egg releases Yellow Bellied Wonderland (2002), Winter Creatures (2005) and The Absence of Birds (2008) is infused with such a fascination with the inscrutability of the everyday.

The original inspiration for Oddfellow’s Casino offers a metaphor for this. David grew up close to the huge Ladybower Reservoir in Derbyshire, which was built between 1935 and 1943 and involved the drowning of two villages, Ashopton and Derwent.

Derwent reappeared when the waters dropped in the mid 70s. You could see the church tower, says David. The image of that tower in the water was the catalyst for Oddfellows, but I could find no photographs of it. I drove to Derbyshire to visit the one bookshop that sold The Drowned Village pamphlet - number 23 in a series on local history - but it was the only one in the series they didn't have. I found a phone number for the writer, but the person who answered said, ‘you mean Donald? He died last week’. Here was a corner of English life that had been lost. It fascinated me.

For The Raven’s Empire, David teamed up with the composer / producer Andrew Phillips (Grasscut) and the Brighton and Hove Concert Band, a 30-piece brass, woodwind and percussion ensemble. Together they give the album a sound that might best be described as domestic grandeur, notably in the track We Will Be Here. Two years ago I went visiting utopian communities, says David of the song’s genesis. There was one in California that got up at 4am to sing chants, and I wanted to create a one-note song built around the rhythm of one particular chant. The result is an eerie, orchestrated drone of a song that is at once creepy and reassuring.

Most of the songs have some sort of connection with death, ghosts and the afterlife. The Day The Devil Slipped Away is about Greg Daville, a late artist friend of David’s from Brighton. You know when you see the back of someone’s head and think it’s someone you know? I’m always doing that with Greg. His presence is still very strong.

Death Won't Have Me is inspired by the word's shortest ghost story: Death And The Gardener by Jean Cocteau. It tells of an Egyptian gardener who sees Death make a menacing gesture. He promptly travels 200 miles to Cairo to escape what he believes is his fate, while his master asks Death: "Why did you make a menacing gesture at the gardener?" The answer comes: "It wasn't menacing, it was surprise; I knew I had to kill him tonight in Cairo." Bramwell has used this as inspiration for a dark, elegant masterpiece. It's certainly the most ambitious lyrical idea I've tackled in a song, he says.

The Murder Bed is about a one-night stand with a twist. The woman told me that the bed came from her neighbour, whose best friend had been murdered in it, remembers David. It amazed me that this woman could be so casual about owning such a potent object.

Elsewhere there are tales of alien landings in pious Welsh villages (When The Comet Came), spectral figures in woods (The Lights On Ermine Street) and a strangely upbeat tune about a haunted house (Embers). All of this is couched in an elegant blend of orchestration, electronics and Bramwell’s reedy voice that sits somewhere between psychedelia, post-rock and traditional music. But what’s really appealing is the spirit of The Raven’s Empire. Rather like one of the episodes of the 80s TV series The Hammer House Of Horror, it’s familiar, ethereal, spooky and reassuring all at once — and very, very English.

Will Hodgkinson, October 2009


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