A Thousand Pokes
Artist Stick in the Wheel
Format:Vinyl / 12" Album
Label:From Here Records
Catalogue No:SITW024LP
Barcode:5056032388024
Genre:Folk
No of Discs:1
Release Date:11 Oct 2024
Weight:236g
Dimensions:313 x 10 x 314 (mm)
Track Listings
Disc 1
1Crystal Tears
2Back of the Hatch
3A Thousand Pokes
4Burnt Walk
5Lavender
6The Cramp
7Cracks
8Can't Stop
9What Can the Matter Be
10Watercress-o
11Brisk Lad
12Hush
13Steals the Thief

SITW's fourth studio album is a satirical celebration of mistakes. A joyous lambasting of everyone and everything that's wrong in the world, against the real-time backdrop of global uncertainty, corruption and political unrest.

A London Charivari. Rough Music. A gleeful old-fashioned cancelling. A Chaunter's delight. 14th Century recording demons collecting mistakes in a sack. Women mugging rich merchants. Nettles being pissed on. Shit food at Lent. A terrible plan. An undoing. The aftermath of a car crash. Catching people doing something they shouldn't. Nursery rhymes reimagined as death threats. Behind the sarcastic acerbic delivery, Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter convey thoughtful, essential interpretations encouraging us all to check ourselves, through the multi-layered music of cities through time. This is about as far away from pastoral folk music as you can get.

In their typical wry city-weary style, a beady eye is cast over those committing wrongs in plain sight, with Kearey narrating a series of tales of people fucking up, or being fucked up, with some brief respite in Lavender - one of London's oldest street melodies - the album being named after the 14th Century story of Tittivilus, the recording demon, who collects scribes' mistakes (pokes) and the idle chatter of the "liars with their hairy tongues" congregation.

Despite this seriousness, the album's working-class dry gallows humour carries a stoic "if you don't laugh you'll cry" feeling amongst the corruption, scandals and barefaced lies we all observe on a daily basis, with a warning that "only you can fix your deficits" and "it's your words and deeds that matter…and let me tell you, they speak volumes".