75 f


LAURIE LEWIS Blossoms Spruce & Maple Music SMM 2005


EVIE LADIN Float Downstream own label no cat. no.


THE HONEY DEWDROPS If The Sun Will Shine own label no cat. no.


Three first class recordings all released by the artists themselves as music moves inexorably away from purchased to downloaded prod- uct. Those in the American bluegrass/ acoustic field have also worked out that as they sell probably 75% of total sales themselves, why sign to a label when you can run your own digital cottage industry. Laurie Lewis has been with several of the prominent acoustic labels over the years and has continually turned out high quality records showcasing her considerable vocal, fiddle and songwrit- ing skills. Blossoms improves, as opposed to continues, this pedigree. Opening with a riv- eting a cappella song and moving through surprising moments, a fifties-style doo-wop song, an old-time fiddle and banjo duet, a blistering version of Johnny Cash’s Train Of Love, it is Lewis’s tuneful and expressive singing that really grabs attention as she selects a worthy collection of original and other songs, each with well chosen instru- mental and vocal support.


www.spruceandmaplemusic.com www.laurielewis.com Evie Ladin is a new name, originally from


New Jersey, but well travelled, who plays old- time banjo and sings like a dream. She also writes nearly all the songs on her CD and has the lucky gift of writing new songs that sound familiar. Not an accusation of plagia- rism, but merely someone who uses all her influences. The title track is Ladin’s excellent voice and banjo with just cello and harmony vocals, on some other tracks the banjo is set aside as she moves into, loosely, country mode, throughout aided by excellent produc- tion from Mike Marshall and percussionist Keith Terry, who are also vital musical compo- nents of the album. www.evieladin.com


Finally a husband and wife duo from Vir- ginia, aka The Honey Dewdrops, a name far less creative than their music. As home-made as it gets: just the two of them, live recording (not live as in concert, but live as performed with no overdubs). Think Welch and Rawl- ings. Clean harmonies, bright lead guitar and a set of original songs. Nothing outstanding, but fresh and original and as self-contained as could be. www.thehoneydewdrops.com


John Atkins


NARAGONIA Carabel Appel Rekords APR 1320


SOPHIE CAVEZ & BALTAZAR MONTANARO


Sophie Cavez & Baltazar Montanaro Appel Rekords APR 1326


GROEF


Des Avonds In Klein Maneschijn Appel Rekords APR 1322


FARAN FLAD Maiden Voyage Wild Boar WBM 21088


Here are four more albums from the varied, vibrant current scene in Belgium.


Like other groups reviewed here, the duo Naragonia come with a pedigree of playing with other leading bands: Pascale Rubens has played with Griff and her musical and life part- ner, Toon Van Mierlo, is with Fluxus. Pascale’s


first instrument was the violin but she then took to the diatonic accordeon; Toon plays clarinet and saxophones, but mainly various sets of bagpipes. They use other musicians sparingly, to vary the timbre of their tunes, but mainly it is just the two of them performing with an incredible sensitivity to one another’s playing. All the material on the album is their own, roughly half each, but stylistically and rhythmically the compositions are played as though they were traditional dance tunes. The album finishes effectively with a couple of Toon’s schottisches “made for a quick dance in the kitchen before going to work”. There is only one song, written and sung by Pascale in a lovely light chansonnier style. There should have been more of this singing.


www.naragonia.com


There is another male/ female duo for the second CD with Sophie playing violin and Baltazar playing diatonic accordeon and their music, largely their own compositions, draws on so many eclectic influences that it is difficult to categorise. From the roots angle, there are touches of Balkan, klezmer and Irish influences, but there are also traces of Slavonic composers such as Bartók and


Janáček and the whole album has something of a chamber music feel to it. myspace.com/montanarocavez


The ten members of Groef are equally divided between Belgium and the Nether- lands with an age range of over 40 years between them. Their repertoire is material drawn from the Flemish and Dutch traditions and given a modern treatment, drawing on other genres in the arrangements but retain- ing an interesting, listenable quality through- out. The real strength of the group is in the several outstanding young female voices, but for all that, it is two instrumental sets that generate the most excitement: the set of hanter dros and the lovely melodic mazurka Tjade that closes the album.


www.groef.eu


In the last of these albums, three of the members have a background that includes some of Belgium’s most prominent outfits – Panta Rhei, Kadril and Trio Trad, and the line- up includes the main man at Wild Boar, Erwin Libbrecht – but Faran Flad’s music takes an entirely different direction. It relies heavily on their Kentish singer, Heather Grabham, whose traditional British songs are inter- spersed with tunes either from these islands or composed in that style. With the tunes, the lead is shared between Heather’s whistle playing and Luc Pilartz’s fiddle. It is all deliv- ered in a pleasing and varied manner that should make them very popular at festivals here and on the continent. There is the feel- ing that this has all been done before with the only really arresting track coming when Heather sings Death & The Lady to a very appropriate tune composed by Erwin.


www.faranflad.com www.denappel.be wildboarmusic.com


Vic Smith


KATRIONA GILMORE & JAMIE ROBERTS Up From The Deep GR! Records GRR 004


2010 has been a real landmark year for Katri- ona and Jamie, with their nomination for the BBC Radio 2 Horizon Award and their first nationwide headline tour as a duo in their own right, expertly fielding the ripples cast by last year’s impressive debut CD Shadows And Half Light. Now, hot on the heels of the news that they’ve been invited to support Fairport Convention on their upcoming winter tour, comes the release of that all-important album number two. We’re told that in recording this new offering a conscious decision was made to strip the sound down to essentials – but


Katriona Gilmore & Jamie Roberts


although the textures are certainly clean, the distinctive combined sound this duo makes still possesses an innate richness stemming from each musician’s strongly individual tech- nique (Katriona’s fiery, dynamic fiddle, viola and mandolin, Jamie’s intricate, delicately percussive lap-tapping guitar).


The quality of intense assurance in their vocal and instrumental delivery and all-round musicianship is also due in part to their ability to naturally assimilate a wide array of musical inspirations, now audibly extended to more prominently embrace influences from blue- grass and traditional folk, twin poles of the musical spectrum which prove surprisingly complementary (the cryptic traditional song Nothing At All features a seriously beautiful guest pedal steel part, courtesy of P.J. Wright no less, and Katriona’s brilliantly idiomatic original Off To California secures a coup with guest banjo from Cia Cherryholmes).


The duo’s tremendous inborn assurance extends to their songwriting, which encom- passes the tough Seth-Lakeman-style folk commentary of Jamie’s All I’ve Known, Katri- ona’s eerily elusive but catchy tale of Fleet- wood Fair, Jamie’s tender narrative The Book- seller’s Story (based on the epitaph of an 18th century Sheffield man) and Katriona’s wry- but-verité account of life on the road (No Rest For The Wicked). And the duo’s thoughtful account of the traditional Shepherd And His Fife is spellbinding, tellingly combined with a variant of Shepherd’s Hey. There are further examples of creative juxtapositions of songs and tunes elsewhere on the album, as well as three vibrant instrumental sets ranging from Punch And Chase, which rather intriguingly seems to marry Leo Kottke with Playford, to the delicious Transatlantic-Session-style Ten- nessee Green). Having finally emerged “up from the deep”, out of the shadows of other bands, Katriona and Jamie should now be able to keep out of the half-light and move into the dazzle of full limelight.


www.gilmoreroberts.co.uk – distributed by Proper: www.properdistribution.com


David Kidman


FEAST OF FIDDLES Walk Before You Fly FOF Records CDFOF005


Apparently it’s over a decade and a half since Feast Of Fiddles got started and this is their first studio-based album. The musicians them- selves, like a good chunk of their audience, believing that they were best captured as a live entity. That may well be true, a constantly rotating posse of members must make


Photo: Barnaby Aldrick


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