About this item

Named after a line taken from the great Edinburgh poet Norman MacCaig’s Praise of a Man, Tommy Ashby’s stunning debut album ‘Lamplighter’ distills the idea that after someone significant enters your life, the light they pass on will spread and illuminate others. Once that light is lit, it never really goes out. The album is a sincere and touching meditation on relationships; familial and friendships, the romantic and the unspoken. Capturing snapshots of people, places and moments in time, the work beautifully illustrates the effect that a person can have on your life and reflects on how the important relationships in our lives shape us; “It depicts all the people who were lamplighters in my life”.

After swapping a one-bed flat in London for the big skies, reed beds and sunsets of rural Suffolk, Tommy found himself writing about relationships with family and friends, along with a sense of place and its significance. Recorded in a series of secluded retreats tucked away in the hidden corners of the UK, an affinity for location and nature permeates the record. You can hear the trickle of streams in the woods of the Scottish Borders, birds spinning off the sea-cliffs of Zennor in Cornwall and the misty autumn chill of days spent recording in Suffolk and Pembrokeshire. Throughout ‘Lamplighter’, Tommy reminisces over many fond childhood memories of wandering wild Scottish woodlands with his parents, his grandma’s enthusiasm for naturalist poetry and folk music or nights spent sneaking into pubs and bars to play the blues with his dad. As the album unfolds the songs muse over these memories. You get a sense that Tommy is trying to come to terms with how these personal connections have changed over the years and how they’ve come to shape him as an individual.

TRACK LISTING

1. Running
2. My Old Man
3. Moonflower (Best Friend)
4. Closer
5. When Love Goes Dark
6. Floorboards
7. Not That Far To Go
8. A Beautiful Day
9. Safe And Sound
10. Lifeline
11. Which Way The Wind Blows
12. Weigh Me Down
13. Comeback Kid