Let's hear it for the old folk

Midlake's new album – infused with the tones of old-school British folk music – will warm the cockles of your heart. They talk to JIM CARROLL

IT BEGINS with Tim Smith's newly acquired collection of old British folk music. "I had a strange musical upbringing," explains the Midlake frontman about his recent folk music boom. "All I listened to when I was a kid was jazz. I was into Glenn Miller, I thought In the Moodwas the best thing ever and then I heard Charlie Parker.

“I didn’t hear bands like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath until I was in my early twenties and a couple of years later, I heard Radiohead and Björk for the first time.”

A while ago, Smith’s ongoing musical education brought him face to face to the wonders of old-school folk music. As he built his collection, Smith discovered and fell for Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle and others of that ilk.

“I mean, I’m not a scholar of folk music,” says Smith. “I don’t know the history of those songs and I haven’t read up on the lives of their singers or anything like that. I just really liked the sound of them, the old world sound. I’m not really into modern stuff at all and prefer old, traditional, historical stuff. The music I was hearing on these records really got to me.”

When Smith played these records to his bandmates, they were also smitten. At the time, the Denton, Texas band's thoughts were turning to recording a follow-up album to 2006's The Trials of Von Occupanther,the release that put them on many musical maps worldwide. That album was built on the rich, big sounds of 1970s rock and much Californian dreaming, tipping the hat to Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac (particularly standout track Roscoe).

“There were several things in our mind when we started recording,” says Smith. “We didn’t want to do what we had done before. We didn’t want to make an album with 10 Roscoes on it. There would be no fun in that.

“We wanted to try to make music that didn’t sound the same as everyone else or sound like what everyone else was making at the time. That’s also because we want to evolve and progress as a band. And of course, we’re naturally listening to different stuff now than we used to listen to and that pushes you in a different direction to anything you’ve done before.”

You can certainly hear the influence of Smith's new-found affection for those old folk tunes on the record. Listen to The Courage of Others, close your eyes and you could be back in that late 1960s/early 1970s scene when medieval maidens and tall ships afloat on the ocean waves were the stuff of every troubadour worth his or her salt. The notes and tones are beautifully faded throughout, as Smith sets his sights on the faraway hills and sings those songs. It's an album to warm the cockles of your heart.

Four years have passed since their last album was released, but it’s not as if Midlake spent that time twiddling their thumbs. There was a lengthy tour before they returned to Denton to regroup, plan and record.

“Some of the songs on the album are quite old, to be honest. The title track was written for the last album but it didn’t fit and we thought it was just too good to be just thrown away as a B-side. I suppose in many ways it the ideal jump-off point for the new direction we took.”

What’s fascinating to observe is how the band effortlessly absorbs the new sound in a manner that doesn’t sound forced or artificial. “I think that has a lot to do with how there’s no Midlake sound as such,” says Smith. “I mean, our first album (Bamnan and Slivercork) was totally different again but, lucky for us I suppose, nothing happened with it so we didn’t get tagged as one thing or the other.

“Instead, we had the time to go away and try things out. We had six or seven years of trying to make it and trying to be known before anything happened. We were never the band that became huge overnight, so we could afford to take our time with things and that’s how we were with the new album too.”

This time out, though, there will be an actual audience waiting to hear that new Midlake record, which Smith says he is naturally pleased about. On the other hand, though, promoting the album does require touring, something which Smith freely admits he’s not overly enamoured with.

“I don’t like touring, but it’s where the money is made nowadays so we have to do it. We’re all getting that bit older and more settled and some of us have kids, so it can be really difficult to leave your family behind for a couple of months to tour overseas. Yet we know we have to do it because we can’t get by from just staying in Denton. It doesn’t work like that.

“This time around, we also have two more guys in the band so that will be fun and we’ll hopefully enjoy it more. Plus I hope to write a lot more. I have some ideas about stuff I want to do in the future on the back of hearing so much music in the past few years.”

So we may not have to wait four years for the next album? “I suppose, yeah, that’s possible. I do feel more confident now. I know the process involved in writing and recording an album and I’m no longer on that really heavy learning curve any more. So, who knows, we might get the next record out a whole lot faster than this one.”

• The Courage of Others is released today on Bella Union. Midlake play Dublin's Vicar Street on February 14th