Richard Wileman on the Forked Road

Fashionably late for the party, apologies, the fellow I’m not sure if he minds me calling “the Mike Oldfield of Swindon,” though it’s meant as a high compliment, Richard Wileman, released his fourth solo album, yesterday (Friday 12th Jan,) The Forked Road. I’ve been lost in its gorgeous blend of prog-rock experimentation and acoustic folk goodness for a while now, perhaps too much to get around to telling you about it!

It is more usual for Wileman to separate his two defining subgenres into composing under the pseudonym Karda Estra, for the experimentally ambient prog-rock, those lush Pink Flyodesque vibes of deep instrumental, and using his own name for the more acoustic folk moments. Yet since Led Zeppelin’s debut in 1969, the two have been married, and here, Richard combines them to great effect. Indeed, it is the former style which draws you deep undercover as a way of a dawning, The Last Book of English Magic is four minutes of lush and gentle instrumental introduction, easing you into this album, the most diverse I’ve heard of Richard’s, playing it out with a reprise, the First Book of….

He takes vocals on the second airbourne tune, Butterflies, a floaty beauty you’d know already if you had just bought our compilation album for Julia’s House, as it was contributed to that project. Wileman describes the album as a “prog-folk horror concept album, rooted in his home county and charting the encounter of a comet with Earth, resulting in the undead rising and converging on The Ridgeway, all bookended by the last and first books of English magic.” If author Philip Carr-Gomm transports us across England’s vast scholaric of occult arts and explores its history of magical lore and practice, Wileman captures this in music as wonderfully as Zeppelin did with the fictional magic of Tolkien; only this Shire is Wiltshire.

The title track again find us on the experimental instrumental path again, and it’s enchantingly cobblestone, teetering with whimsical harps, from Chantelle Smith, like sorcery evaporating into mist, only to be followed by the summit of this adventure, The Children of the Sun, a duet with Amy Fry, which is blissfully sublime; dreamy is the benchmark here.

Just like the Horses of the Gods album, We Wish You Health, if you’re not whisked into a timeless magical realm within the mystics of your own county by now, seek medical attention! Avenue & Circle is more harp and melodica driftiness, like wandering into the crystal shop in Avebury. Finally, the scene is set, and Richard brings back Amy Fry to vocalise the diegesis unfolding. Comet Vs the Earth is Wileman’s Forever Autumn, if Justin Hayward was Jeff Wayne’s scene setter in his musical version of War of the Worlds, and what can be more of a Wiltshire related comparison than that?!

Harpist Chantelle Smith duets with Richard on the next tune, Old Bones, delicately resurrecting, never does this venture into anything horrifically jumpy, rather flows gently throughout, even if things are becoming spooky in the next instrumental piece, Spectres of the Ridgeway, which in its very name suggests the narrative of the concept.   

Alongside guest vocalist, Amy Fry, who also adds saxophone, and harpist Chantelle, and his daughter Sienna, who captured sound recordings of Avebury, Richard’s multi-instrumental skills are at the forefront, taking on guitars, vocals, bass, keyboards, percussion bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, accordion, melodica, and finalises his projects with artwork.

We’re nine tracks into this storyline, concluding with a dramatic ambient piece. Wileman’s faint lamentation leaves you wondering if the Inevitable Beast is metaphoric and you’ve missed a reality within the plot, and it’s followed by the aforementioned reprise. Combined this album is awash with the timelessness of prog-rock concept albums, of Bowie, and The Who, yet dreamy as Pink Floyd, all this I expected, but in listening to the past two sections, of Richard’s acoustic solo work largely with Amy Fry, and the more experimental angle of   Karda Estra, I’ve longed for the two to embrace, and here it is, and it’s all rather lovely, wrapped in mystical narrative; top marks!

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