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stylings to songs and tunes, mainly from that area. The title track is the only one common to all five, and the medieval ballad takes on all kinds of interpretations not usually found, from Woody Mann’s country/ folk picking, through Ed Gerhard’s rich Italianate folk trills and Duck Baker’s jazzy working around the melody, to Bob Brozman’s extraordinary raga-tinged ver- sion on his 22-string Hindustani slide guitar, which he also uses to great effect on O Bella Ciao, which is mostly known as a partisan song of World War Two, although its roots possibly go back to a Yiddish song of 1919.


Along the way, Mann plays a bridal waltz


by Virgilio Rovali, then Eighth Cantata, which is part of a maggio, a ritualistic musical per- formance of the area, and another classic bal- lad, Cecilia. Baker explores a 17th-century ballad with links to the Scottish Lord Randal in its origins, Il Testamento Dell’Avvelenato, which fuses a Fahey-like mood with Celtic playing, and joins Gatti for a mandolin-guitar version of Ratto Al Ballo. Gatti also plays with Brozman on the carnival ballad Siamo Poveri Calderai, with the traditional sounds of the mandolin countered by the growls of a bari- tone resonator guitar. Gerhard then creates a medley of the wedding lament Bell’Uccellin Del Bosch with the tune Canto Delle Mon- dine, creating a great sense of space and air, before linking up with Gatti for the Reggio Emilia rice-weeders’ song Sento Il Fischio Del Vapore (I Hear The Steam Whistling – a song of loss and lament). The album finishes beau- tifully with a short, sweet rendering of Donna Lombarda in its best-known traditional form, with Maramotti’s guitar backing Gatti’s man- dolin. All album sales go to the hospice, and it’s a lovely way to help, as well as a terrific showcase for all concerned.


www.barcoderecords.it Ian Kearey


CATH & PHIL TYLER The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck No-Fi NEU018


Those entranced by the hypnotic lure of Alasdair Roberts’ darkly intense voice and satanic material


are likely to be equally besotted by this potently atmospheric collection. Cath Tyler’s voice carries the portent of doom, stark and unyielding, while there’s little respite from the pronounced and deliberate accompaniments, mostly on acoustic guitar and banjo. Stick with it – there’s lots of blood, a fair bit of death and not too many opportunities for a knees-up, but they treat every lyric on these largely American versions of a largely traditional repertoire as a potentially live hand grenade, with the result that each track comes loaded with stirring intensity and dramatic tension.


They lighten up on the instrumentals, including a dextrous guitar arrangement of The Wind That Shakes The Barley and the wittily titled Whip Poor Will, while there’s some lovely fiddle work from Pete Challoner on Golden Ace before it transmutes into a dour interpretation of Courting Is A Pleasure. But these aren’t happy-clappy tales and, from the tragic story of Lady Gay to the nefarious revenge morality of Castle By The Sea, the eerie Three Maidens and the sorrowful part- ing depicted on Our Captain Cried with its famously telling line “Why must you go away fighting for strangers?”, they don’t deviate from the central message, that hones remorselessly in on your heartstrings.


It’s bleak, it’s harsh, it’s sparse, it’s uncompromising, it’s funereal and it’s also oddly beautiful and rather wonderful.


www.no-fi.org.uk www.myspace.com/cptyl


Colin Irwin


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