While few might have predicted it, Lost in the Cedar Wood is a collaboration that, when announced, made a surprising amount of sense. Johnny Flynn, Britain's folk-rock bard of song and stage, and Robert MacFarlane, the country's pre-eminent nature writer, came together in 2020 to write a pandemic album. Since releasing 2016's masterful Sillion, Flynn has been largely devoted to his burgeoning film career, taking on wildly divergent period roles ranging from David Bowie to Jane Austen's George Knightley. MacFarlane, for his part, is coming off the effusive praise of 2019's Underland, his epic exploration of the hidden world beneath our feet. Flynn's reputation as a creative polymath is well-established, though MacFarlane's musical pursuits have only been hinted at in his writing. Both are poignant wordsmiths with a deep love of Albion lore, legend, and natural history. Using the Epic of Gilgamesh as their starting point, the two friends spent the early lockdown days of 2020 enthusiastically trading ideas back and forth, eventually culminating in a group of songs that were recorded in the bucolic setting of a rural Hampshire cottage. Although credited to both artists, Lost in the Cedar Wood arrives as Flynn's fifth solo album with MacFarlane's contributions greatly augmenting, but preserving the overall continuity of the former's catalog.
The most immediately striking thing about this set, at least in terms of presentation, is its rugged spontaneity and wildness. Rarely has Flynn sounded quite so intense or loose as on cuts like "Gods and Monsters" or "Flood in the Desert," his voice alternately booming and cracking as tempos fluctuate in a cacophony of buzzing strings. Like MacFarlane's mountain tales or his archeology of landmarks, the music seems firmly rooted to the earth, sprouting organically from its nadir with an inchoate sense of power and the weight of history in its bones. There are bluesy romps like sprightly "Ten Degrees of Strange" and the playful "Bonedigger" as well as anthemic dirges like "Tree Rings" and the glorious "Nether," which feels as ancient as England itself. Lost in the Cedar Wood is not Flynn's most accessible record, but it might be his most immediate, and its communion of two masters in their prime makes for a satisfying listen.