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ed debut album is wonderfully rich, highlight- ing the panoramic breadth which encompasses The Imagined Village’s thoroughly modern take on an old theme with My Son John and Nancy Wallace’s intimate The Welcome Sailor, with – a master stroke this – Bob and Ron Cop- per sandwiched between them singing The Sweet Primroses from the early 1950s to give them both root and context.
This is its strength. It shows clear links in the chain via the Coppers and Shirley Collins, through the Watersons dynasty (including Marry Waterson and Olly Knight), Pete Coe, Chris Wood, Kathryn Tickell, Old Swan Band… and a vital new cavalry that includes Emily Portman, Bella Hardy and Jason Steel. Jolly good show Mr A…
Oh and there’s a bonus CD2 of Coope, Boyes & Simpson in the package too. Not sure why but hey, they’re good too.
www.worldmusic.net/englishfolk Colin Irwin
SEUN ANIKULAPO KUTI & EGYPT 80
From Africa With Fury: Rise Knitting Factory BEC 5772820
Dense, tireless, rhythmically involved – Seun Kuti’s music with the Egypt 80 is about as sharp and massive as afrobeat is ever likely to be. The mighty horns speak forth with authority, the rhythms command bodily attention like a floor seething with snakes big and small. In terms of protest, Seun picks up his late father’s outraged baton with spirit and verve. The whole thing is precise and well-managed. All the same, in comparison with his first more dangerous and jagged CD Many Things, proceedings seem a little too air-smoothed, too distant on the listener’s ear. The bass, for example: impeccably played, but it often sounds more like a synth than a live strung thing. Painstaking electron- ic ointments, just a touch too much of them, and they don’t tend to invite you in.
Rick Sanders
LUCY WARD Adelphi Has To Fly Navigator 47
Whatever else, Lucy Ward’s debut album doesn’t lack courage. A breathy unaccom - panied vocal leads us into opening track The Fairy Boy (an adaptation of a 19th Century Samuel Lover poem learned from a Judy Dun- lop album), while boldly individual interpre- tations of formidable ballads like The Two Sis- ters (with an unusual concertina accompani- ment) and The Unfortunate Lass are high- lighted by the strong sense of individuality which is a feature of the whole collection.
Yet there are plenty of singers who deliv-
er this stuff with as much subtlety and emo- tional depth, so the album’s primary interest lies in the self-written songs which occupy half of it. Lucy Ward has developed a writing style that avoids the self-regarding angst that typifies the early efforts of so many of her age group (she’s now 21) and, like fellow Derbyshire singer Bella Hardy and Emily Port- man, she seemingly uses the influence of the tradition to fire her imagination in oblique, unexpected ways. The dramatic imagery of Julia and Adelphi are subsequently coated in mystery, teasing the imagination with dark vignettes and ghostly characters. The more straightforward story she tells on the sad Bricks And Love might descend into pathos if it weren’t for blending in the chorus of Eriskay Love Lilt to give the track both con- text and richness. Equally her stark Death (Rock Me To Sleep), adapted from a poem purportedly written by Anne Boleyn while awaiting execution, is very affecting.
It was probably obligatory to include the unaccompanied treatment of Mike Water- son’s A Stitch In Time which has become her calling card, although anyone familiar with the Martin Carthy and Christy Moore versions might wince. Similarly her Maids When You’re Young brings nothing new to the party. Yet there’s still so much to like and admire here, not least in the singleminded confidence she conjures so effectively to make such a powerful impact from wilfully sparse arrangements. Belinda O’Hooley, Heidi Tidow and Megson feature, but Stu Hanna’s characteristically intimate production bravely puts all its faith in Lucy Ward’s own personali- ty. And mostly that’s strong enough to carry it.
www.navigatorrecords.co.uk Colin Irwin
VARIOUS ARTISTS Banquet Of Boxes Mrs Casey MCRCD 1102
Once maligned as unsubtle and foursquare, the English melodeon has metamorphosed
into a vehicle for sophistication and eclecti- cism, and a fashion accessory for folkaholic youth. Banquet Of Boxes delivers a handy snapshot of where the instrument is now, bringing together 12 squeezers picked by one-time Albion Band stalwart and morris musician Simon Care. Admirers of the highly rhythmic, bellows-driven and preferably Hohner-built sound of English country dance music – who sometimes complain that the general raising of standards among younger melodeon exponents has come at a price of overmuch continental influence and jazzy chording – will find some evidence here of a counter-revolution. John Kirkpatrick sets aside his usual button accordeon in favour of a bog-standard ‘pokerwork’ to provide his usual rhythmic masterclass; Mark Bazeley gives us supremely danceable tunes in the style of his grandfather, the much-loved Bob Cann, while father/son duo Matt and Dan Quinn and Simon Ritchie deliver robust and unflashy music with plenty of swing. On the one-row melodeon, Katie Howson, leading light of the traditional East Anglian style, draws intricate ornamentation as well as drive from her ten buttons.
Katie Howson From the youth wing of the Castagnari
Tendency, Mawkin’s Nick Cooke contributes an impressive self-composed tune that sounds like he’s been listening to Frédéric Paris, before segueing cleverly into the wild and wonderful Old Noll’s Jig. Saul Rose opts for morris dance tunes, turning Banks Of The Dee into an exquisite waltz full of harmonic invention and delicacy. Andy Cutting, the player responsible more than any other for the present fashionability of the melodeon, endows the haunting Northern Lass with some curious dissonances, before going into an exuberant Waiting For Janet.
Finding new tunes to learn is, of course,
one reason that box players will want to buy this CD. John Spiers’ compositions may prove too challenging for some, but Ed Rennie’s well- paced pair of modern morris tunes manage to sound timeless while springing a few nice sur- prises, and may well attract tune-locusts.
The melodeons stand pretty much on their own, though Rob Murch’s banjo pops up on the Bazeley tunes, Simon Bannister’s pretty air and waltz are accompanied by Cate Bannister’s fiddle, and Simon Care duets with harmonica whizz Will Pound. Nobody sings, which is a bit of a pity. Nonetheless the opportunity to hear some fine playing and good tunes should have melodeonophiles queuing at the CD stalls this festival season.
www.mrscasey.co.uk Brian Peters BLAZIN’ FIDDLES
Thursday Night In The Caley Own Label BRCD2011
ALASDAIR FRASER & NATALIE HAAS Highlander’s Farewell Culburnie CUL123D
ANNA-WENDY STEVENSON My Edinburgh Own Label AWS001
Blazin’ Fiddles have been running their annual ‘Blazin’ in Beauly’ Scottish fid- dle school for quite
some years now; the Caledonian Hotel has been the scene of many late-night gather- ings, and their latest album captures the feel of such a session. This current line-up sees Jenna Reid – replacing Catriona MacDonald – together with Allan Henderson, Iain Macfar- lane and Bruce MacGregor as the fiddle wall of sound, while Anna Massie (guitar) and Andy Thorburn (piano) provide the necessary accoutrements. As one might deduce from the title, there’s nothing flash here, and little solo work: just seriously good fiddlers blazing away on some great sets of tunes. An ener- getic, exciting and highly satisfying brew of Scottish music from the tradition, and well worth seeking out.
www.blazin-fiddles.co.uk
Alasdair Fraser is rightly regarded as one of the foremost exponents and teachers of Scottish fiddle music, and his annual ‘Valley of the Moon’ fiddle schools in California have been running even longer (if memory serves) than those at Beauly. Highlander’s Farewell is his third album with Natalie Haas, a young vir- tuoso cellist. Fraser’s fabulously fluid fiddling is set off against some choppy rhythms and a slightly edgy sound from Haas’ cello in a way that just grabs the attention and won’t let go. On this album the duo have used some judi- cious help from a number of seriously excel- lent musicians (including Martin Hayes, Den- nis Cahill, Bruce Molsky, Laura Risk and Han- neke Cassell) to add some more depth to the sound, but the extras are always subservient to the wonderful interplay between their two instruments. Fraser and Haas were responsible
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