IN DEFENCE OF THE WILD
The CD comes with a beautifully designed 16-page booklet, containing images of Padma’s yurt and his reflections on climate change and solutions for a sustainable future. The CD comes in eco-friendly packaging, made from post-consumer cardboard and card from sustainable forests. The inks are non-toxic.
The dropcard is made from 100% post-consumer packaging and is embedded with wild flower seeds. Once you have redeemed your download, you simply bury the card, water it, and watch the flowers grow!
Background
Inspired by Thoreau’s Walden, Padma spent the winter of 2008/09 living totally off grid, in a yurt in the mountains of Spain. He kept a blog while he was there, which attracted widespread media attention and saw him interviewed on national radio shows in the UK (BBC Radio 2 and 3). Now living in a cohousing community in Vancouver, his current blog is regularly featured on The Independent (a national UK broadsheet)’s website.
In Defence of the Wild is a collection of songs inspired by Padma’s time in the yurt. It smells of wood fires and tastes of freedom. If his first album drew comparisons with Nick Drake, the new one is lyrically closer to the mischievous political poetry of an early Bob Dylan. Sonically, Defence draws on a much wider field of influences than Here, while still playing to the natural strengths of his immaculate vocals and sensitive acoustic guitar work. Nick Drake is still present, but this time we can also hear the upbeat skank of Manu Chau and even occasional hints of Sonic Youth can be heard.
With songs like ‘Consumers of the World, Unite!’, ‘Route 666’ and ‘The Bloke Downstairs‘, Padma pulls no punches in his comments on contemporary culture. The intimacy and warmth that was characteristic of Here is still very much in evidence, albeit this time focused on issues around Padma’s love of the wild places of the world, and his pain at the thought of their destruction.
Though dealing with difficult subject matter, Defence is neither a judgmental preach-fest, nor an angry political rant. It is an album filled with love, humour and melancholy (and yes okay, a little bit of anger too).
Padma says:
I’m speaking up for the wilderness, because it can’t speak up for itself. But I’m also advocating for that which in us — and in society — is still wild. Wild in the sense that it is untainted and untamed by the urbanisation which is sprawling across our world, suffocating our hearts, and causing so many problems for the planet.
I like the word ‘wild’ because it represents a direct challenge to authority and control from outside. This has been a big part of the problem. Some people think of being ‘wild’ as being without concern or responsibility – like a spoilt celebrity teenager. But for me, wild suggests a natural and heartfelt morality based on true freedom, and a direct connection with both our own nature, and the Earth itself.
Although Padma only arrived in Vancouver in 2009, very quickly he has found himself at the heart of the Vancouver music scene. After seeing Padma’s first Canadian show, Lauren Eldridge of Backstage Vancouver agreed to manage him. T.Nile – winner of the Canadian Music Award for Best Emerging Singer-Songwriter – adds her honeyed tones to exert a considerable presence on the album. Other contributors include organist Andy Taylor from UK-based psych-frontiersmen The Dials, and Stefano Reali of Rome’s Happy Never After.
