Mark Harrison: The Panoramic View

The Panoramic View
Mark Harrison

Two years have flown by since we reviewed Mark’s Turpentine album here at Marsh Towers.

Turpentine was, in some ways, the final part of a trilogy of albums and was predated by both Crooked Smile (2012) and The World Outside (2014). All three presented the quirky observations of the outsider who has to deal with an ever-growing number of eccentric people and baffling situations; in short, the modern world.

Although sharing some messages with its forefathers, The Panoramic View - newly released this week - takes the listener into brave new directions. As the title suggests, the outsider now turns his attention to the much wider world at large and this includes direct tributes to former blues greats, plans of running away to a better place, humiliation brought on by human feelings, a lack of social conscience, irreverent spirits and even an instrumental in honour of a Coventry bus station.

The individual song titles contain plenty of intrigue and they definitely up top Mark's usual creative and imaginative standard.

Track List

01 One Small Suitcase

02 House Full Of Children

03 What Son House Said

04 Meet On The Other Side

05 Ragged

06 Falling Down

07 High John

08 Pool Meadow Strut

09 Don't Die Till You're Dead

10 Ain't No Justice

11 Rediscovery Blues

12 Mess Is Everywhere

13 John The Chinaman

14 The Biggest Fool

15 Hooker's Song

An innovative device employed by Mark on this album is the use of spoken word introductions, setting the scene for each mini-story to follow. Gail Porter delivers the little prologues in style: matter-of-fact, informative and kept short so they never outstay their welcome.

It is a bold innovation – and it works. It's not that Mark's fine songs don't tell the story in themselves - of course they do - but these spoken prologues set the listener thinking before the first note is played.

For example, the introduction to Mess is Everywhere compliments the song perfectly and is thought-provoking in itself:

'Sometimes, everything can just fall apart, you don’t have to do much of anything for it to happen. The wheels just come off and you wind up in a ditch, wondering how you got there. No point pretending there is no ditch.'

On the surface, Mark’s songs can often come across as jaunty roots and blues music. There’s nothing wrong with being just that, of course – but these are crafted songs that need to be listened to in order to understand the messages and secrets they contain. 

Take John the Chinaman, for example. At first impression it could escape as a light-hearted song, but a closer examination reveals a far deeper meaning dealing with very important subject matter. Here is the introduction, setting the scene for the song:

'When the transcontinental railway was built in the US in the 1850s, the owner of one of the two companies building it bet his counterpart 10,000 dollars that his workers could build 10 miles of track in one day. The workforce consisted of 3,000 Chinamen and 8 Irishmen in charge. The Chinese workers all got called John the Chinaman, their names too hard to pronounce or decipher, no records of them kept. At the end of the job, there was a celebration parade in Sacramento to honour ... the 8 Irishmen. This kind of thing of course goes on today, in different guises.'

It's not so easy to name highlights from such an extraordinary set of songs; there is certainly no 'filler' to be found here. However, I would like to give a shout out to Don't Die Till You're Dead, Falling Down and Meet on the Other Side. 

The latter song is a simply glorious piece of gospel music. Incidentally, the very word 'gospel' has been known to be off-putting to some, due to its obvious religious roots and overtones. However, one should not let such prejudices get in the way of enjoying fine music. Remember Patty Griffin's exploration of the genre on the outstanding Downtown Church, back in 2010? Patty had no history of gospel prior to the album but...those songs!

Mark's band is tight, as usual, and the personnel can be seen here.

If you have yet to explore Mark's music then now is a great time to start. All of the songs work on various levels, from toe-tapping along to the hooks and riffs to becoming wrapped up completely in each individual story and reflecting afterwards on the various observations and issues raised along the way.

The Panoramic View is highly recommended as a robust antidote to the surface-level material that is is too often passed off as music. Mark has clearly put an awful lot of effort into crafting these songs and it is high time his music reached a much larger audience.

Find out more about Mark’s music and tour dates over at his official website.