For their new album, sibling duo The Unthanks covered a lost treasure of British music. Becky Unthank tells EDWIN GILSON about the project and her strong bond with her sister.

IN A way, there is a clear link between Nick Drake and The Unthanks. Both musicians are known for their atmospheric instrumentation and enchanting melodies. Both take big influence from traditional folk. Both, for better or worse, have been described as “quintessentially English” in their sound.

So, when Becky and Rachel Unthank set about writing their fourth “Diversions” record (adaptations of others’ music), the songwriter, who committed suicide in 1974, seemed an obvious candidate to cover, right? Not quite. Instead it was Nick’s mother Molly who became the focus for the album. While her music was never published in Molly’s lifetime, two compilations of her material were released in 2007 and 2013.

Becky Unthanks says Molly “sang for herself, for her own passion. She just did it for her own personal pursuits, to explore her own feelings and ideas.” It was Nick’s father Rodney who encouraged his wife to recite her songs; he set up a recording device in the family’s living room and Molly sung whenever she felt like it.

Becky praises for Molly for her “emotional intelligence” – the kind that allowed her to understand and empathise with Nick, who suffered from clinical depression. His death was a result of poisoning from the antidepressant pills he was prescribed, although some of his family members have contested that it was suicide.

All of his albums have become cult classics in the last few decades but Nick never saw success in his own lifetime. While Nick’s music is frequently uplifting, it is also permeated by melancholy and hopelessness; take the lyrics to Day is Done, for instance.

“When the party’s through/seems so very sad for you/didn’t do the things you meant to do/now there’s no time to start anew/now the party’s through.” Becky says she doesn’t know whether Molly shared Nick’s mental issues, but is certain that she “understood them”, which, apparently, comes across in her music.

“She’s definitely able to articulate those complicate battles with the light and the dark and with your emotions. She can articulate things that I can’t in my personal life. She had a special ability to pick up on what others were feeling.” In the press release for Diversions Volume Four – The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake, The Unthanks reference the current “climate where films, stories and music are being rehashed for spurious repeat exploitation”.

Obviously this is a different case given the lack of exposure of Molly Drake’s music up to now, but were there any reservations about covering her material? “There’s always a consideration where you think, ‘Why am I doing this?’ If we feel like we have a connection with it, that’s the only truth that we can rely on. As long as we understood that we weren’t trying to make better or more elaborate versions, we were ok.”

In typically humble fashion, Becky says she can’t compare her and Rachel’s vocals with that of Molly, implying they are not of the same standard. “We were like, ‘can we sing that? What is that tune?’ The songs sound familiar but once you get down to it they’re actually very complex.” The sisters’ eternal bond made the task simpler. Becky jokes that “it sounds sickening but we get on ridiculously well. We’re always like, ‘Can we sit next to each other on the aeroplane’.

Becky is almost eight years younger than Rachel – “I find it weird she remembers me being born” – and remembers idealising her big sister. “I thought she was the coolest thing ever. I wanted to be like her. Just as folk music connects The Unthanks with Nick and Molly Drake, it binds the sisters together.

“Me and Rachel are folk singers and we come from folk singers,” says Becky. “We’ve always loved singing together. When you’re in a band with anyone you feel like a family, which is even more the case if you actually are a family.”

The Unthanks, St Bartholomews, Brighton, Monday, May 1