Song: Crake – Gef review

by Philip Moss

If you’re lucky enough to be taking a stroll down Blackpool promenade on a clear, summer evening, as you stare out into the Irish Sea, you may just be able to catch a glimpse of the Isle of Man – an island almost equidistant between the English shoreline and the coasts of Ireland. And it was here that Leeds based songwriter, and Crake front woman, Rowan Sandle’s father grew up – and from where the story of Gef the talking mongoose was born.

Myths and legends have long crept into the tales spun by folk singers, but when they’ve been passed down a loved one, they strike that bit harder – and it is Sandle’s close affection for the tale that led her to weave the character into the Leeds based band’s latest single. As part of a double A-Side with Enough Salt (For All Dogs)Gef is a song brimming with sentiment. Hanging around every word that creeps from Sandle’s oracular voice, choral flurries, reverbed bursts of guitar and minimal percussion make up the first part of a song that is split distinctively into two. But where the first two thirds of the song sees Sandle open her heart directly to the loveable mongoose, the final third ends up feeling like your favourite tape that’s got stuck inside a Sony Walkman after being played just one too many times – whirring somewhere close to the perpetual world created on Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner’s The Music from Bagpuss. 

This is most certainly not your average folk tale, but Crake are not your average alt-rock band. So if you’re lucky enough to spend some time with Gef, you’ll soon realise that this latest incantation may just be the quartet’s most enigmatic yet.

Gef is out now as part of Saddle Creek’s 7″ Document Series.

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