There is a certain kind of album I recommend reaching for when at the lodge – folky, pastoral, intimate, languid. Here’s a selection of 10 favourites to soundtrack your stay. Music to lodge by, perhaps?
1. Paul McCartney – McCartney (1970)
As the Beatles were disintegrating, Paul McCartney sought refuge with his wife and baby daughter at their recently acquired dilapidated farm and set about his first solo album. He supplemented Beatles cast-offs (‘Junk’) with slight song sketches (‘Lovely Linda’) and one bona-fide classic (‘Maybe I’m Amazed). Considered twee on its release (including by bandmates Lennon and Harrison), over 50 years later it’s still a little modest, but charmingly so.
2. Pink Moon – Nick Drake (1972)
I reach for all three of Nick Drake’s albums while at the lodge. But this is the one I turn to most often – under half an hour of just Drake, an acoustic guitar, and a hint of piano. It has a reputation for being bleak (it was released two years before Drake died of an overdose of antidepressants) but to my ears – lyrics aside – it feels warm, hopeful and intimate. ‘Horn’ in particular could soundtrack an episode of Bagpuss.
3. Avocet – Bert Jansch (1978)
If there is one album that reminds me most of Fritton Lake, it’s this album of finger-picked folk instrumentals with six tracks inspired by different wading or sea birds. The 18-minute title track is like a celtic-folk ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, with multiple movements that pay tribute to a bird that was almost driven to extinction, but now happily can be spotted in nearby Breydon Water.
4. Visions of the Country – Robbie Basho (1978)
You can’t find this forgotten, hypnotic gem on audio streaming services, but thankfully some good egg has preserved it on YouTube. Basho was a mysterious and spiritual guitarist who married Indian music with Western folk. In ‘Blue Crystal Fire’ you can picture Basho yodelling alone by a campfire in the American wilderness. Meanwhile his plaintive whistling on ‘Leaf in the Wind’ will leave a lump in your throat.
5. Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen (1982)
I’ve always been rather allergic to ‘The Boss’ until I heard his quintessential ‘Man locks himself away in the middle of nowhere with just an acoustic guitar for company’ album. Bruce spins tales of downtrodden American characters that are a world away from southeastern Norfolk. But pour a glass of bourbon, dim the lights and the stark music fits the lodge perfectly.
6. Mojave 3 – Ask Me Tomorrow (1995)
Mojave 3 rose from the ashes of indie ‘shoegaze’ band Slowdive. Their debut is essentially a collection of acoustic alt-country demos for their record company, who loved them so much they were left as is. Woozy opener ‘Love Songs on the Radio’ is often one of the first songs I put on when reaching the lodge. It features Rachel Goswell’s ethereal voice, but set to delicate pedal steel rather than Slowdive’s glorious racket.
7. Vashti Bunyan – Lookafterling (2005)
Vashti Bunyan took 35 years to follow up her Just Another Diamond Day, a folk album that was ignored on its 1970s release but whose reputation has grown in the following decades. It feels almost intrusive to listen to Bunyan’s fragile, whispery vocals over piano, recorder and delicate orchestration. I feel rather like Mogwai chancing upon a girl singing to herself at the river in The Jungle Book.
8. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (2008)
For some reason I reach for the glorious harmonies of Fleet Foxes’ debut (think Simon & Garfunkel meets the Beach Boys) when there are tasks to be done at the lodge. Perhaps because this is such an autumnal album – equal parts euphoric and melancholy – that is the perfect accompaniment to sweeping leaves from the decking or preparing logs for winter.
9. Instrumentals – Adrianne Lenker (2020)
Half of a two album set, Instrumentals is rooted in improvisations Adrianne Lenker recorded in a one-room cabin in the woods during the pandemic. Unlike the accompanying Songs, there are no tunes as such – just two extended pieces of lo-fi ambient guitar, with Lenker’s delicate strumming accompanied by bird song, wood burning, wind chimes and the creak of her chair.
10. Weather Alive – Beth Orton (2022)
Norfolk’s very own Beth Orton made her name in the late 1990s as the ‘comedown queen’ with folktronica albums such as Trailer Park that appealed to clubbers wanting to wind down. As she lost interest in the electronics I also lost interest, but her latest is a stunner. Inspired by her stumbling across a sooty old piano, it contains eight intimate tracks of haunting folk with her unmistakable voice.