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whereas the remaining eight songs are given fresh new readings by Robb, intimately- scaled to just guitar and occasional acoustic bass; all but three of the tracks also feature the superb musicianship of Saskia Tomkins on violin, viola and nyckelharpa. The settings serve to accentuate the folk-chansonnier strand of Robb’s writing. Here the politics may be less overtly voiced, but there’s still a distinctive humanity about the songs, espe- cially in the way the issues and situations are expressed: one that can be considered time- lessly political in the wider sense of the word.
The Abramson Singers
While Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch and Van Morrison all linger on the horizon, Georgia Ruth comes over as more of a true original than most of the young hopefuls roaming these isles. The country and blues musicians of Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog supply twang, lilt and thwack. All the way, the album (“It starts off with a silence / A growing need for sound / And silence forms an upright bough”) is an absolute delight.
www.georgiaruthmusic.co.uk Peter Palmer RAYNA GELLERT
Old Light: Songs From My Childhood & Other Gone Worlds Storysound SSR-161-006
THE ABRAMSON SINGERS Late Riser Factor 8 75531 00929 3
Warning: I may be about to over-enthuse! Two women here whose new voices speak old-time truths and whose stellar songwriting heralds new and exciting possibilities. With great artwork thrown in.
Rayna Gellert is deeply rooted in the landcsape and sounds of mountain string- band music, a reposi-
tory for old ballads and traditional fiddle tunes, her playing skills, and those of her banjo-toting father Dan celebrated in the old-time music community. With Old Light she set out to explore those sad songs and murder ballads that were deeply immersed in her consciousness from childhood. In the pro- cess, Gellert found herself striking off on an enlightening tangent, marrying traditional balladry (amongst them 1845, The Cruel Mother, The Fatal Flower Garden) with her own new songs relating to the murkiness of memory at play in their telling. And they are beautiful – intelligently written and poignantly constructed, with a melancholic thread that connects them seamlessly to the source material.
Gellert has been most well known for her potent fiddling skills up until this point and, while she did sing when she was in Uncle Earl, her voice has never previously been to the fore. But she wears it comfortably. Just as with her subtle but pokey playing, her voice cuts to the heart – unadorned but beautiful. The soundscape for the songs is full-textured, with her own ripened string sound, Nathan Salsburg’s generous, warm-hearted guitar playing, banjos, moog guitar, trumpet – a
rich, resonant instrumental patchwork – and an impressive roster of harmony vocalists from Alice Gerrard, Abigail Washburn and Leah Abramson…
…which leads on neatly to The Abram- son Singers. Another known old-time voice (Crooked Jades/Dyad) with outward-looking musical eclecticism, songwriter Abramson began recording a cappella, as lead for The Abramson Singers, at a point when she was temporarily unable to write songs on guitar after the onset of tendonitis. The result is still fresh and pure-toned. Where Gellert‘s sound pushes at boundaries gently, Late Riser kicks off with a modernist, minimalist foray into Alt-J-style surround-sound multi-layering on Liftoff Canon. Gentle-natured music, but in unexpected settings.
In her soft-centred vocal stylings, I’m reminded of the sadness of Laura Cantrell’s lyricism, particularly on the dulcet-toned, Hammond-drenched Drowning Man (with Rayna Gellert on viola!). No four-square arrangements here; instead we have an upbeat and fulsome band sound with loose- strung twanging guitars, bellowed-things and walls of brass…and singalonga melodic hooks. I love the tick-tocking, hypnotic bilin- gual songwriting on Marguerite.
Both Gellert and Abramson are exciting voices from across the pond. Come on in, the water’s fine.
raynagellert.com
www.leahabramson.com
Sarah Coxson
ROBB JOHNSON West Pier Serenade Irregular IRR087V
The first of a pair of almost-concurrent new Robb Johnson releases appears just in time for Record Store Day. It’s a kind of Robb-In- Retrospect job, a relatively unpolitical ‘best- of’ but with a slightly convoluted history. Originally planned to accompany a collection of his dad’s poetry (sadly not now to appear), the songs were partly chosen by his dad and partly by Robb himself for their appropriate- ness to the album. They span the full extent of Robb’s songwriting career, from the title song – written a couple or so years before its 1979 publication in Southern Rag – to Whit- ton High Street, a simple and charming remi- niscence written on the very morning of the album’s recording in 2012.
Those two songs are receiving première recordings, as is J Johnnie (inspired by his dad’s memoir of his experiences in the RAF),
Noni & The Golden Serenaders and The German Exchange both date from Robb’s 1997 song-suite Gentle Men (concerning his grandfather and the First World War), while Sunday Morning St Denis – undoubtedly one of Robb’s finest chansons – is truly a perfor- mance to savour (it has already enjoyed wider currency in Barb Jungr’s brilliant version). The gentle poignancy of Robb’s “golden crocus song” Here Comes That Miracle Again (which also explores his relationship with his dad) and Gliders For Tim (inspired by an epitaph seen in a churchyard) is complemented by Down The Town And Over The Moon (an affectionate portrait of the generation-wide appeal of Saturday afternoon football), When’s It Gonna Snow? and the “subliminal subversion” of Cauliflower Curry.
This reflective and entirely companion- able collection is being released on limited- edition vinyl with CD counterpart.
www.robbjohnson.co.uk David Kidman UHRBRAND & THORLUND
Neo Traditional Ism Gateway Music UT 0113
SVØBSK KVARTET Bjergtaget GO’ GO0413
RANNOK Dejodejo GO’ GO0123
The small Danish island of Fanø, just off the Jutland penisula’s west coast, has retained its dancing and tune tradition and so been a beacon to the present Danish folk revival. But there hasn’t been the mark of a really living tradition – ongoing new composition – in the island’s music until this set of sixteen new Fanø søndørhonings and fanniks from two of its leading musicians, fiddler Peter Uhrbrand and guitarist Nils Thorlund.
For the CD, rather than just the two instru-
ments they’d generally use for playing for dancing, they’ve made more of a production of it, multitracking themselves on other instru- ments including piano, keyboards, octave vio- lin and viola, tenor banjo, bass and percussion, which should encourage repeated listens and get these new tunes into local consciousness. To further help other players pick up on them and so bring them into the tradition they’ve made a book of them, plus fifteen more not on the CD, ring-bound so it lies flat when open. Smart, positive thinking; time will tell.
www.gatewaymusic.dk
There are three Fanø wedding tunes learnt from Peter Uhrbrand on the album by Svøbsk. The band is a product of the revival, fiddler and singer Jørgen Dickmeiss and piano-accordeonist Maren Hallberg having met ten years ago on the folk music course at Odense. For this third CD the duo has expand- ed to a quartet with Theis Langlands on piano and harmonium and percussionist Simon Busk. Their music is a mix of well- absorbed tradition and new compositions in a wider vein, a skilful blend of dancing spirit and listening elegance, largely instrumental but including the occasional song.
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