75 f BELLA HARDY
Songs Lost & Stolen Navigator NAVIGATOR044
The third album from Edale’s very own Bella Hardy… and quite a dramatic advance it is, too, from her first two, Night Visiting and In The Shadow Of Mountains. It’s entirely self-writ- ten, for a start, produced with some sophis- tication and ambitious instrumentation by Mattie Foulds of The Burns Unit (Karine Pol- wart’s husband) with the likes of Kris Drever (playing some gorgeous slide guitar on Walk It With You), Anna Massie, Patsy Reid and Su-a-Lee (cello and musical saw) joining regular collaborators Corrina Hewat on harp and Chris Sherburn on concertina as she dives off into some unexpected diver- sions… a nod to rockabilly here, a smoky jazz suggestion there, a bit of country lurk- ing in the undergrowth, some melodic pop undertones over the way.
Confronted by such a bold leap of faith, one reaction might be to dismiss it out of hand, wonder what the hell she thinks she’s doing and tell her to get back to traditional song pronto. Yet such a knee-jerk response discounts several salient facts… one being that the stand-out track from Night Visiting and the song that made her reputation in the first place was a composition of her own, Three Black Feathers. Admittedly it was struc- tured as a traditional song, but In The Shad- ow Of Mountains provided further evidence of her songwriting potential, notably Sylvia Sovay, inspired by a famous traditional song re-written in a very modern context.
Her material on Songs Lost & Stolen takes several strides on from there and, once you get your head round the lusher style in which it’s presented, it’s obvious that not only is it exceptionally strong, it generally main- tains a direct line to traditional roots. This is most obviously true in the narratives of The Herring Girl, Flowers Of May, Bridge Of Dean and Rosabel, an updated fairy tale in the Emily Portman mould, but it’s there too in more contemporary sounding material, notably the remarkable opening track Labyrinth. Part-inspired, apparently, by the singer Little Boots, it grows from quiet, acoustic beginnings into a lavish interpola- tion of Greek mythology into a complex song about relationships.
It’s a risky effort that could easily descend into the gaping canyon waiting to devour the millions of singer-songwriters with pop pretentions. There are times (when
Mor Karbasi
the drums get over-excited on Good Friday and the romance is laid on too thickly on Full Moon Over Amsterdam) when she teeters on the edge of it. But several things contrive to push her beyond the morass… her exception- al lyricism for one and her ear for a subtle yet telling chorus for another, both of which are amply demonstrated on Walk It With You. Yet the thing that most constantly lifts it and will always represent the core appeal of any Bella Hardy album is her voice… full, unveiled, committed, uncontrived, persua- sive, passionate, empowering and utterly wonderful.
www.bellahardy.com Colin Irwin
MOR KARBASI Daughter Of The Spring Alama 002
An initial waterfall of notes from Fred Thomas on La Hija De La Primavera, the opening and title
track of Ladino singer Mor Karbasi’s lovely second album, momentarily gives the fear that she may have gone down the tinkly cock- tail piano route that has been the recent curse of some of the world’s most emotive singers. Thankfully, though, it swiftly heads in another direction with the texture of Nir Museri’s bansuri flute, and the dread name of producer Javier Limon is nowhere to be found in the credits.
With lyrics shared between Mor, her mother Shoshana and the Ladino tradition, and with distinctive arrangements and set- tings by her guitarist/producer partner Joe Taylor, bassist/percussionist/keyboard man Thomas and Mor herself, Daughter Of The Spring builds successfully upon the promise of her 2008 debut The Beauty & The Sea.
Like its predecessor it encourages repeated listens to reveal all the detail, and the beguiling range and variety of the songs and arrangements reward this, from the soft, Spanish jazz-flavoured introspec- tion of Cuando Vuelvas to the moody El Pas- tor with Taylor switched to oud, to the elec- tric guitar driven mid-eastern funkiness of of Dezile Al Mi Amor. But throughout it’s once again Karbasi’s wonderful voice – a truly expressive, electrifying instrument with a huge but superbly controlled range of tones, decorations and expression – that cements it all together.
www.morkarbasi.com Ian Anderson
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