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I retired in the autumn of 2014. The calendar says that’s less than 10 years ago, but it feels like a completely different life. Instead of writing software for a business making subsea welding robots, I now manage a website and provide I.T. support for a charity that offers educational opportunities to those in their third age. Having escaped from the selfish pursuit of the rat race, I can devote my talents and my energy to giving something back to society. In a way, it’s the reverse of that previous life, a switch from taking to giving. It hasn’t made me feel any younger, though.

. . .

Those thoughts were prompted by Beth Gibbons’ performance on a recent episode of the Later … With Jools Holland TV show. She sang two songs from her latest solo album, Lives Outgrown, and I began to wonder what that title means. Is the Portishead singer contemplating how our lives go through phases: childhood, adolescence, maturity, senescence? Or is she suggesting that we literally have many lives, being reincarnated time and time again?

Beth Gibbons is an excellent proponent of modern indie folk music. Her writing picks the cherries from alternative and indie rock songs, adding them to her original folk recipes to make light, but rich and satisfying compositions. In the Crotchety style catalogue, she is filed next to Laura Marling, and the attached ‘See Also’ tag carries oblique references to Clannad and Joni Mitchell.

All the songs on Lives Outgrown are built from the same template: layered vocals, folk guitar, woodwind, strings and percussion. But, what it lacks in its variety of construction, it makes up for with a high standard of musicianship and production. The lyrics are tantalisingly poetic, deliberately leaving room for the listener’s own interpretation. But the voice is impassioned – there’s no doubt that the singer has something to say. Most of the songs move along at a gently stimulating pace; the exception is Reaching Out, which steams down the track, sounding a bit like Hidden Orchestra. And there are some nice decorative features, too: a whistler on Lost Changes, an evocative flute refrain on Whispering Love.

All in all, it’s a thoroughly recommended album.

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In my next life, I will try to be even more giving. I just hope I don’t come back as an insect!

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