Peasant (album)
2017 studio album by Richard Dawson
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Peasant is a studio album by avant-garde folk musician Richard Dawson, released on 2 June 2017 by Weird World. Each song on the album is from the perspective of a different fictional narrator. Although it is set in the Kingdom of Bryneich, from the 400s to the 600s CE, it is intended to be a modern record, the stories and plight of each character largely contain universal themes that connect to the present day.[1]
| Peasant | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2 June 2017 | |||
| Genre | Progressive folk | |||
| Length | 58:46 | |||
| Label | Weird World | |||
| Richard Dawson chronology | ||||
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Reception
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 8.3/10[2] |
| Metacritic | 82/100[3] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [4] |
| Financial Times | [5] |
| The Guardian | [6] |
| Mojo | [7] |
| Pitchfork | 8.0/10[8] |
| Q | [9] |
| Record Collector | [10] |
| Uncut | 8/10[11] |
Peasant received acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82 based on eleven reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[3] The Quietus listed it in first position on their list of the best albums of 2017,[12] and it placed second in The Wire magazine's annual critics' poll.[13] Exclaim! listed it at number 8 on their Top 10 Folk and Country Albums of 2017 list.[14]
In his review of the album for The Quietus, Danny Riley described Peasant as "a work reclaiming meaning of words like "folk" and "community," a complex parable and a force for unification in divisive times" and described Dawson's avant-garde approach to folk music as "more a prickly thicket of brambles than a bed of moistened leaves, with creakily bowed strings, spiky rushes of acoustic guitar and occasional splurges of noise."[15]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Richard Dawson.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Herald" | 2:18 |
| 2. | "Ogre" | 6:56 |
| 3. | "Soldier" | 4:52 |
| 4. | "Weaver" | 5:58 |
| 5. | "Prostitute" | 4:00 |
| 6. | "Shapeshifter" | 4:30 |
| 7. | "Scientist" | 4:48 |
| 8. | "Hob" | 5:57 |
| 9. | "Beggar" | 7:24 |
| 10. | "No-one" | 1:20 |
| 11. | "Masseuse" | 10:49 |
Charts
| Chart (2017) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Scottish Albums (Official Charts)[16] | 79 |
| UK Independent Albums (Official Charts)[17] | 12 |