We chat to Becky Unthank about winter, family and the Northern weather

The Unthanks' new album In Winter is beautiful, bringing thoughts of winter and Christmas, and opening with the sound of the wind and unearthly echoes. Were you looking for something quite dark in some of these songs?

Well I think for a long time we've always wanted to make a winter album and, although we love Christmas, we wanted it to be a winter album, rather than a Christmas album.

I think there is this expectation to be really happy at Christmas and not everybody has lots of family round or lots of money to have these kind of luxurious parties. Also it can be a hard time of year for some people, and it can be cold and bleak as well. 

I suppose you want to look at the contrast between the warmth and the cold of this time of year, so we hope it kind of goes in and out of bleakness, and in and out of warmth.

Would you say it's very much a reflection of what's happening in the country at the moment, particularly the last few years?

Well it certainly, I think life has been a little bleak... it has been a difficult time for some people. We don't want it to be totally bleak, we want it to be a comfort in some ways, but I think what's happening in the country and the world is... well, you just can't ignore it, can you?  So there's an ode to the NHS, for example (Nurse Emmanuel).

Do you think your music is bound up in the weather, particularly of Northern Britain? 

We do talk about the weather a lot, don't we? I suppose it's a good metaphor for emotions and, you know, we do sing a lot of songs in Northumberland and the Borders. And those landscapes and the weather's kind of evocative of those stories of the land past. I don't know, there's something poetic in it all being wrapped up in stormy weather.

Tell us about reworking those hymns, carols and folk songs on the album?

That's one of the things Adrian, our pianist and arranger really wanted to have on the album, and we all came with different ideas for the album we wanted to make. We had to figure out how to make that album, which I think is partly what makes us strong as a band because we have contrasting ideas and we have to figure out how to weave them in amongst each other. 

Adrian really wanted it to be a really hazy memory of Christmas, because we do have a collective memory of our being kids. Those songs were always there... I think music is really powerful as it almost transports you, doesn't it? It transports you to another time that you had forgotten. You hear something and it'll spark a memory of the last time you heard that song, or where you were, or when you were a kid or something, and that's a beautiful thing about music.

How much of the history of folk music in the North East has influenced The Unthanks?

A huge, huge amount. Tar Barrel in Dale feels like it was first on the list when we came to make the album. Our dad wrote the song, about tradition in Northumberland, and it's always been like a Christmas song. That is, for me and Rachel, how we came to music and how we came to being performers and our love of harmony is really our passion in music and I suppose what we contribute to the band.

Our parents love to sing. They don't sing professionally but it's always been a big part of their lives. They brought us up listening to The Watersons and taking us to festivals. I think we were lucky. We got to hear a lot of live music in the folk world. It's very inclusive, it's very family-orientated and so that line between performer and audience is very interchangeable.

And I think that the importance of the words in folk music is something me and Rachel really try to carry through to our music. Our music has kind of morphed over the years but the words are really important to us. I'm still a folkie at heart.

Obviously me and Rachel are sisters, so we do have that close relationship, but I think singing in harmony for so long, especially doing it year after year, you have to trust one another. You're listening to one another so acutely, to sing in tune and the phrasing.

How important do you think it is to sing with a regional accent?

I remember my dad pulled me up on it saying "How would you say that word? OK, so why wouldn't you sing it?" He pointed it out in such a simple way and I thought, "Oh yeah".

I feel like there's truth in it as well, to tell a story, or convey an emotion I suppose. It really matters in folk music and other types of music that I like. It's maybe not so important in every style of music, but in our genre of music I think it is important.

There are lots of other beautiful sounds on the album and some instruments I don't recognise. Do you have any personal favourites that complement your voice?

We usually heavily rely on a string quartet, so it's been nice to loosen up a bit and try a different sound world. For this particular album we were drawn to something slightly different, which is to have the vibraphone. I don't know if it necessarily complements our voices, but it complements the music. 

There's also a joy seeing members who've been in this band for maybe 20 years, and I'm seeing different sides of them as musicians. Chris, who always plays acoustic guitar and bass is playing the electric guitar and making lots of pedal sounds; Adrian's on drums sometimes; and then everyone's swapping around a bit and it's nice to see. I think you can get a bit stuck in your roles sometimes; who you are as a band or who you are within your band and it's nice to see everyone kind of expressing themselves in a slightly different way, and trying out different things.

Basically our band are so talented but underused, so it's nice to be able to give them a bit more freedom and say, "OK make some more noise."

Everyone is singing on the album a lot more than usual: it's often me and Rachel doing the vocals but, we've got everyone singing - lots of group vocals.

Do you feel the layering of sounds compares with the layering of time in the landscape and the sounds of the country?

Well I hadn't thought about it like that ... There is such a density, isn't there, to the Christmas memory, or winter memory and some of those things are obvious and some of them are kind of underlying and less present in our minds. So varied vocals and music do give a richness to the imagination of what can be found.

I suppose we can't necessarily dictate what each listener is going to take from it. It's nice they can interpret it in different ways.

Do you feel the songs and the music have an age to them? Not so much belonging to the past or a certain time, but with that feel of winter as a time and memory?

I think that a lot of the songs are literally very, very old, so some of them, nobody knows who wrote them and they have been passed though many people's lives. It's like having a connection to the past and to the people. I suppose it's like a people's history in a way. 

For example, Dear Companions, that I wrote for the Singing Weekenders; the tune is very old. I don't know who wrote it, but the church borrowed it as an old traditional tune, and they took it and wrote words to a hymn, and so I suppose these tunes have had so many lives that have been repurposed. It's a way of feeling connected to people and the opposite of that is to not feel alone.

So I think that sense of history and time is really powerful and it's hard to put your finger on sometimes. We all want to feel connected to the past and even to the audience when we are performing. That's a big part of why me and Rachel love to perform. We've grown up hearing loads of music live and felt that connection in that way so, to flip it round and see these people on stage singing songs ... it's nice to feel connected. We're all not so different after all. There are lots of common threads, and it's good to be reminded of that.

The Unthanks' new double album In Winter was released on 29th November 2024. The band perform at Nottingham's Albert Hall on 10th December.