75 f
2 The Chair The Road To Hammer Junkie (Folky Gibbon Records, FGCD023). The Chair’s second album of kick-ass, souped-up ceilidh- dance music combines traditional Orcadian fiddling with stomping percussion and bass. With twin fiddles, viola, accordeon, banjo, mandolin, guitar, bass, bodhran, djembe, hammer and drums, this is Orkney’s answer to Cajun music!
www.lovethechair.com
2 Vincent Cross A Town Called Normal (Own label, no cat no). A cut above the usual run of singer-songwriters, New Yorker Cross sets his material in trad arrangements and to trad-like melodies even as his lyrics express an observant modern sensibility. Good stuff, not the least of it a happily restorative reading of the otherwise exhausted Cuckoo. Someone to watch, maybe.
www.vincentcross.com
1 Jenny Ritter Bright Mainland (6 70541 19052) Eleven original songs. Well per- formed, well played and arranged but in truth one of a million as opposed to one in a million.
jennyritter1.bandcamp.com
2 Stompin’ Dave Allen & Earl Jackson Stompin’ the Blues (STB 001). Live on stage and in studio, English musicians Allen and Jackson take Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, and others back to their acoustic roots. Without frills or pretence, the set serves to remind that country blues capably performed never wears out its welcome.
www.stompindave.com/
earljackson.htm
1 Whiskey Trail Celtic Fragments (Mate- rialli Sonori Associated 99196). Celtic Frag- ments is the fourteenth album from a long- established Italian Celtic outfit. Musically the studied approach recalls early Chieftains and is highly ornate and quite lovely. The inconsis- tencies are vocally where it’s a Celtic twilight faerie-fuelled disaster area.
www.whiskytrail.it
1 Ceis Wandering Aengus (Tambourine TAMCD003). A Japanese female Celtic harp duo made up of Sayaka Ikhuyama and Agata. Wandering Aengus features standard vocal fare including WB Yeats and Robert Burns compositions translated into Japanese. Capa- ble harpists and the oriental charm and vocal naiveté works well.
www.tambourine-japan.com/
harp001.htm
1 Tradish Roots And Shoots (GO’ GO 013). Cosmopolitan Danish trio peddling familiar and would-be Celtic fare. John Pilk- ington’s rustic vocals add some welly. The fid- dle/percussion/strings trio breathes nicely but sounds limited when an additional box or flute would add extra fire and brimstone. Not bad.
www.gofolk.dk
2 Fleadh The Cleggan Bay Disaster (Greenhill Media, LC 13476). Fleadh is a Ger- man semi-Celtic outfit with some nifty instru- mental chops and a knack for clever arrange- ments. They swing rhythmically and the ghost of Christy Moore purveys the vocal input betimes. One of the better Teutonic Irish pur- veyors.
www.fleadh.de
1 Modhan The Admiral’s Fireworks (Own label, no cat no). Folk/world/jazz/funk compositions by young, six-piece Edinburgh band playing clarinet, whistle, piano, violin, mandolin, guitars, bass and percussion. The music mixes Scottish traditional, Balkan, klezmer, Turkish, Egyptian and funk with bucketloads of syncopation.
www.modhan.com
2 Various Artists Celtic Airs & Reflective Melodies (Greentrax, CDGMP 8015). This col- lection came from popular demand for an album exclusively of slow airs. Do not be put off by the touristy packaging. The contents are pure gold from the Greentrax back- catalogue: traditional Scottish melodies played by Scotland’s finest folk musicians.
www.greentrax.com
@ Hey Mavis Honey Man (Stellada Music). Acoustic quartet. Original material. Messy. One banjo does not a roots CD make.
www.heymavis.com
1 The Bowhill Players The Joe Corrie Project – Cage Load Of Men (Fras Publica- tions / Fife Council, JCOR001). Scottish poet, playwright, coal-miner and socialist Joe Cor- rie wrote in the 1930s about the dehumanis- ing poverty endured by ordinary people pay- ing the price of the banking crisis. Singers and musicians from Fife perform Joe’s poems in folk, country and gospel styles.
www.birnamcdshop.com
1 Kari Tauring Nykken & Bear (Omnium OMM2109). Norwegian and Swedish songs and recitations, in those languages and English, from Minnesotan self-styled “staff- carrier” with frets, fiddle, winds, bass, drums. Doesn’t rate in Scandinavian musical terms.
www.omniumrecords.com
1 Fjärin Mixtur (GO’ GO 0313). Danish vio- linist Søren Stensby, guitarist Kasper Ejlerskov Leonhardt and Swedish/Estonian double- bassist Johannes Vaht play their own folk- rooted tunes, with guest piano, whistle and accordeon. The album’s most distinctive points by far, though, are the two songs per- formed by guest singer Mia Marlen Berg; get her into the band, guys!
www.gofolk.dk
2 Country Joe And The Fish Electric Music For The Mind And Body (Vanguard Masters VMD2 79244). Mono and stereo ver- sions of the 1967 album which blew the band’s, and everyone else’s, minds in Berkeley and beyond. At this distance, there’s a lot of jugband, folk and blues amid the psychedelia. Zoinks, Scoob!
www.van-
guardrecords.com
1 Hexacorde & Vanesa Muela Agarraos (Hexacorde HEXCD003). Trad tunes from cen- tral Spain swung by Madrid sextet on concert flute, clarinet, soprano sax, dulzaina, cittern, guitar, bass, drums etc. As on their 2008 album joined on five tracks by singer Muela, but seem more intent on very planned but lumpy instrumental arrangements than giv- ing her deserved space and accompanying her.
www.hexacorde.com
2 Mouse And The Traps The Fraternity Years (Big Beat HIQLP 004). Red vinyl LP, yet, showcases East Texas band who in the mid- 1960s recorded storming R&B, heartbreaking gentle folk-rock and the best Dylan sounda- like single ever. This one refuses to leave the turntable, it’s that good.
acerecords.co.uk
Palm Trees, Señoritas… And Rocket Ships
2 Tannis Slimmon In And Out Of Har - mony (7 41360 35483 8). Canadian, with insightful, well constructed songs. Acoustic and ambitious and well worth a listen if you can.
www.tannis.ca
1 Duncan Wood & Guests Swarbtricks (Beechwood, SWB121117). After a recent Edinburgh gig, Dave Swarbrick composed loads of tunes in various Scottish styles: col- lected and performed here by Scottish fiddle and mandolin player Duncan Wood, with Cathal McConnell on flute and whistle, and guests on guitar and harp.
www.birnamcdshop.com
Palmtrees, Señoritas… And Rocket Ships
Mark Makin MBM Publishing (ISBN No. 978- 0-9574746-0-4) £65 plus p&p
A beautifully illustrated full-colour catalogue of every known model of National (and asso- ciated) guitar that Mark Makin could find. The book is “The vision of the Dopyera Broth- ers and art of National, Dobro, Supro and Valco instruments.”
Page one is illustrated with the special
presentation guitar given to George Beauchamp, CEO of National Guitars, when they parted company in 1932. This metal- bodied guitar is magnificently engraved; the neck and headstock are covered in white pearloid and it has Roman numerals mark the frets. The headstock is engraved with
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