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slips far more easily into the mainstream there. Today’s teenagers are also coming of age at a time when capitalism itself is being called to account, a time when the commercialism of manufactured pop and the crass effluence of the corporations dominate the media.


So might they look to folk music for a sense of authenticity, an identity in a form which is a means of rebellion, not against their parents but against the mainstream, against lazy acceptance of it all? And in their enquiries come across the arcane archetypes in folk, which Spencer lists as myths, fairy-tales, people from another land, alien forces, hostile forces, demon lovers, fertility figures, crones, maidens, mothers, warriors. “And”, adds Anderson, not just speaking for himself, “weirdness is attractive. Strangeness attracts people, it’s part of the growing interest in English folk customs and the morris. You listen to Emily Portman and those dark fairy-tale songs and you wonder what’s going on in her mind!”


“Oh,” says, Spencer, “bones and


feathers, that’s standard teenage-witch stuff!” And indeed, when you’ve got twenty-somethings singing about these things to other twenty-somethings, they’ve got currency. A currency which might cir- culate more freely due to its resonance (ironically) with mainstream teen pre- occupations with werewolves and vam- pires and magic; a cultural co-incidence which could act as a conduit to increasing the popularity of folk.


Folk might also be helping itself by being, according to Spencer, “Less up its own arse. The parameters are much wider,” he says. “Even if performers choose to stay resolutely in our tradition, it’s going to benefit from a much wider (musical) awareness. I’m sure the Unthanks have heard lots of world music, how could they not have done when they play


songwriters who “Sing about stuff they should be saving for their psychiatrists and not inflicting on the rest of us. Folk music,” he says, “tends to have a story.”


E Neil Spencer


Womad? Clearly they do. World music has rescued British and American folk, by giv- ing it a different context. It’s now part of a global arena in a mosaic of cultures.”


Whilst English folk might now have a platform on the world stage, it still has trouble getting past British ‘media gate- keepers’, for whom the old woolly-back image seems to still loom large. Spencer again: “The ghettoes of world music and folk are well patrolled to make sure nobody gets into the mainstream.” And folk, Anderson says, is not helped by it’s own die- hards “who don’t listen to the new music but just say ‘oh, they’re not one of us’.” So a scene which might reach out to a wider audience shoots itself in the foot by not putting more of these emerging acts on.


Anderson is concerned that these younger names should not in any way be confused with the kind of singer/


There are, however, singer-songwriters who are more likely to cross over, like Kathryn Williams (currently working on a second album with Neill MacColl) who taps into universal, meaningful themes. “Or more cult figures like Mary Hampton with her literate weirdness,” suggests Anderson. Both could form a bridge to the ‘other country’ that is English folk music, encouraging its wider exploration.


xploration, though, has always depended on explorers. And in terms of music, this is a time when the job has never been so easy. iTunes has blown open a cornucopia of musical possibilities and illuminated countless paths to a particu- lar destination, available to anyone with an enquiring mind. It has also, Anderson worries, facilitated closed minds, making it easy to stay forever exploring in a comfy rock/pop ghetto. “The haystack/ needle ratio is getting bigger and bigger, paradoxically making the rare even hard- er to find,” he says. “I don’t agree,” responds Spencer, who’s a fan of the argument that the almost limitless opportunity new media provides opens more doors than it shuts. I leave them at the table arguing about it.


But they’ve made me think it’s entirely possible that English folk music could now become a more popular destination as it rejuvenates and re-inspires at a time when it is perhaps more peculiarly relevant on both a political and personal level than it has been for years. In folk we find both our lost Eden and our punk voice of rebellion.


And now for something completely


different: Neil Spencer discusses astrology with E.K. –www.the psychicweek.com F


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