BLANK ARCADES is Andrew Rumsey’s third “album-in-a-day’” recorded in historic Wiltshire churches. This time, Rumsey (aka the Bishop of Ramsbury and Bishop designate of St Albans) has delivered almost as many songs as on Collodion (Arts, 11 April 2025) and Evensongs (News, 20 October 2023) combined.
It is the product of songwriting workshops ten to 20 years ago with Chris Difford (Squeeze) and Ray Davies (The Kinks), re-worked tunes from the Collodion sessions, and new material. His intimate, uncluttered, lo-fi folk recordings (guitars, church organ, percussion) cover swimming in Olympic pools, perpetual lateness, local gym romance, political manipulators, and reflections at train stations. It is gently ironic, quirky, eccentric even — a refreshing response in these times of over-production and mass market messaging.
But the overarching theme behind Blank Arcades came from a visit last October to Salisbury Cathedral, where the north porch has a series of Gothic arches that are simply decorative facades, effectively doors to nowhere. The Bishops had just released their final statement on Living in Love and Faith (LLF). Commenting on his blog, Rumsey thought the concept of impeded progress for his next record was appropriate: “At times, LLF’s long and winding road can feel uncomfortably like leading God’s people up the garden path, so I pray that we find a better route from here — one becoming a way in, not merely a point of departure.”
“Pilot Light” meditates on the loss of inspiration generally (“Pilot Light / Always waiting for it to ignite”). Rumsey confesses to spiritual auto-pilot in Oxford: “Quarter to eight and I’ve prayed on repeat / gloria patri along Juxon Street / Artfully hiding a man incomplete / into a siding on silent retreat” (“Juxon Street”). “Fastest in the Slow Lane” recalls his slow swimming, a classic on underachievement: “I have medals to my name / with citations which state how my triumphs are famously small.”
But Rumsey, as a keen observer of place, spots unimpeded progress and its negative impact on our landscape. “Shirley Windmill”, a Grade II listed tower mill in Croydon, is surrounded by Bovis homes: “Some restless night you might imagine / how Shirley Windmill shuddered into life / and spun upon the breeze.” Likewise, “We are the Sons of Temperance” narrates the turning out of the London office of a US abstinence movement set up in 1842. Rumsey’s lines are stark: “We are swept aside like supper scraps / and gone within the week.”
My highlight is “Fall in Eugene” (this is the single). Reminiscent of late-1960s California pop with Byrdsian jangly guitars, Rumsey slips in a clever name check to the creators of Fargo (which was filmed there), contemplating if he will ever visit it: “Set the scene for Ethan Cohen / smile at the idea of going.”
I detected shades of Nick Drake and Martin Carthy on this record. Rumsey said at his listening party that there were times he was “channelling John Wesley, Robert Wyatt, and John Donne” (no surprise given his wordsmithing abilities and love of antique Evangelical hymns). This is one to savour.