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A Matter Of Life… Editions Penguin Cafe 5060259350009
We were still (just) Southern Rag back in 1984 when a curious record called Broad- casting From Home
showed up. It mesmerised with its minimalist themes that sounded like they might have some relationship to a folk music from out there, but little did we imagine that over the next few decades the opening track, Music For A Found Harmonium, would pretty well enter the tradition, especially in Ireland.
Composer Simon Jeffes who founded and guided the original, floating Penguin Cafe Orchestra ensemble died in 1997 and that seemed to be it, but a decade later his equally multi-instrumentalist son Arthur was involved in a lovely series of reunion concerts at London’s Union Chapel. These were eye- opening not only for the loveliness of the music but also because who knew there were so many PCO fans out there that they could fill the place three nights in a row?
Following that, Jeffes The Younger recruited a completely new group to con - tinue in the tradition of the old, and follow- ing a decent amount of touring this is their truly delightful debut. It would be a foolish reviewer who’d try to forecast which of the many charming earworms contained here might capture the mass imagination in the way that Harmonium or Telephone & Rubber Band did for their ancestors, but Landau (fea- turing Kathryn Tickell on Northumbrian pipes), the ukulele-driven, West African flavoured The Fox & The Leopard or muted cello-led highlife of Ghost In The Pond must surely be in with a shout?
I was most annoyed to miss their recent double-header tour with Portico Quartet, but once you start adding names like Spiro into the current equation as well, you begin to sense that there’s a distinctive and special school happening here in the 21st century.
www.penguincafe.com Ian Anderson OLD SWAN BAND
Swan For The Money WildGoose WGS 378CD
There’s something reassuringly warm and familiar about the Old Swan Band. You know that, just
as everything seems alright with the world while we still have the Shipping Forecast and Test Match Special, Old Swan represent a solid building block for English dance music… something of trust and good cheer to raise a beam of recognition if not an unseemly romp around the kitchen with Jim the postman.
Way back when, they did after all offer almost lone resistance to the remorseless march of Celtic music, championing and lay- ing the groundwork for a wider appreciation of English tunes, leading to the more fashion- able era in which we currently luxuriate – not that they’ve been exactly prolific in the years since their first foray into the recording studio with the landmark No Reels in 1976. This is only their sixth album and their first since Swan-Upmanship celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2004, but by now they sure as hell know what they’re doing and yep, there’s that big, bright, breezy, chunky sound and a confident wave of fiddles distinctively under- cut by growly dollops of brass and a dashing array of cracking tunes. There’s even another classic Tony Hall illustration on the sleeve to complement another excruciating title pun, so who, frankly, could ask for anything more?
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