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born in Niger. Akaline meanwhile sounds like Jamaica via Jethro Tull, a combination which works surprisingly well. Overall however, the record sounds definitively Brussels and much of the same spirit channelled by artists native to that city, like Baloji, is evident throughout.
Whilst Tin Hinane could sometimes be accused of being a tad too subtle, it is certain- ly a fine record and an original take on the diverse musical currents flowing through Europe’s capital city.
kelassouf.com/en/ Liam Thompson
MATS EDÉN Pastern Gammalthea SEWJN 17
Mats Edén is, and has been since the 1970s, an absolutely key figure in the energy and evolution of Sweden’s folk music. The core and main composer of Groupa, collaborator with many other leading musicians, and to be found at the heart of the most intense buskspel clusters of musicians at spel- mansstämmor, the new music flows out of him as he deeply explores, masters and revels in the stretched relationship between rhyth- mic pulse and melody in Swedish and Norwe- gian dance music.
On Pastern he rounds up 26 tunes from throughout his life, about half of them his own, the rest traditional, some learnt from 1910-20 recordings. He plays them on solo fid- dle, viola d’amore, viola, hardanger fiddle or one-row melodeon, occasionally tracking his own duet part, and, if you let the CD run on after the last track, a burst of mad diddling.
Simple, it might seem, but there’s so much going on within the music rhythmically and in double-stopping. There’s a rich seam here for any fiddler, and any classically-edu- cated violinist who reckons they know it all should hear the stuff on this CD, listened to perhaps back-to-back with Bach’s and Bartók’s solo violin pieces.
www.matseden.se Andrew Cronshaw
BRIAN PETERS & JEFF DAVIS
Sharp’s Appalachian Harvest Pugwash PUGCD 009
The album of the show that has been seen on both sides of the Atlantic this year!
Brian and Jeff have been researching and preparing a multimedia show based on the song and tune collecting undertaken by Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles on three visits to the Appalachians during the First World War. As there were over 1,600 items collected on those trips, the show and the CD can only skim the surface but they have come up with something hugely interesting and enjoyable.
It is well known that Sharp was looking for a bit of Old England in the New World and he found it in this important and fasci- nating collection.
Obviously, the old ballads would be at the centre of the interest, but this album also includes children’s play songs, fiddle tunes, a hymn and even a fine Napoleonic item.
However, it is the ballads that have the biggest impact with a number of really fine performances here. Jeff’s way with Earl Brand and The Green Willow Tree show what many people already know, that he is an outstand- ing performer of traditional ballads and in interpreting Edward in the style of Lee Munroe Presnell, he gives the album’s most arresting performance. Brian could have had problems with his very English voice on this very American material, but he wisely (and skilfully) chooses material that suits him such
as False Knight On the Road and Gypsy Davey with the text of both closer than most to British versions.
Sharp was not looking for British-derived material among African-American singers but he did note one verse of Barbara Allen from a very old freed slave and it turns out to be one of the finest tunes to carry these very com- mon words. Brian has reconstructed the bal- lad from other sources and gives it an excel- lent performance.
The accompanying booklet contains many photos (as does the show, apparently). They show what a really fine photographer Sharp was and they give us important social history insights
www.brian-peters.co.uk Vic Smith PAUL DOWNES
The Boatman’s Cure WildGoose Studios WGS 396CD
MICK RYAN & PAUL DOWNES
When Every Song Was New WildGoose Studios WGS 393CD
Paul us arguably one of folk’s unsung heroes, having played on around 250 albums in total including those of bands like Arizona Smoke Revue and The Joyce Gang, and in duo collab- orations with Phil Beer, Mick Ryan and Mag- gie Boyle, while also releasing just four solo albums of his own – to which The Boatman’s Cure is a proud successor.
Here Paul gives us a well-considered mix of traditional and contemporary song, exactly what you’d get in his live performances but with additional textural enhancement in the shape of delightful and well-judged contribu- tions from Phil and Maggie, also Issy Emeney, Keith Kendrick, Jackie Oates and Gill Red- mond. Paul also intersperses a separated brace of piquant, gently intricate solo guitar tracks that revisit tunes he’d composed several years ago for Show Of Hands’ 2003 album The Path. Whatever the song, Paul invariably chooses well, to suit his vocal capabilities and sensibili- ties while giving deserved, often timely profile to the creations of other writers, notably Kevin Boyle (The Road To Camden Town), Nick Bur- bridge (The Old Man’s Retreat), Bob Kirk- patrick (I Hate The Rain), John Richards’ stir- ring anthem Honour And Praise, and of course Paul’s current duo partner Mick Ryan (Down Among The Deadmen, reprised from recent folk-opera The Pauper’s Path).
Jeff Davis & Brian Peters
His expertise on banjo is also unques- tioned, as his characterful disc-highlight takes on the poignant traditional Farewell Nancy and the more lively Unaccompanied (Accom- panied), an early Harvey Andrews classic, both well demonstrate. Paul’s choice of tradi- tional material embraces both ends of the emotional spectrum, from the mournful cau- tionary tale of The Broken-Down Gentleman to The Poor Old Couple, which turns out to be a rather jolly song on the time-honoured topic of female infidelity.
There’s no disappointment to be found in this reliable collection, for Paul has pro- duced an ultimately most satisfying record whose qualities will stand the test of time and reaffirm his status as much more than the ultimate English folk session musician.
This teaming of two of the very finest artists on the folk scene has thus far pro- duced two well-received CDs, Grand Conver- sation and Away In The West, and here’s the third, which celebrates the happy coinci- dence that both Mick and Paul were born in the same year and both underwent their folk scene apprenticeship at roughly the same time. When Every Song Was New also intentionally returns to several of the (tradi- tional) songs which each of the men absorbed, almost without trying, during those formative years.
Paul provides inventive, judicious and intensely sympathetic guitar (or occasionally, banjo) backing, for which the term ‘accompa- niment’ is considerably inadequate! Some further embellishment is provided, selectively and delectably, by Maggie Boyle (flute, whis- tle, bodhrán), Gill Redmond (cello), Keith Kendrick (concertina) and Tom Leary (fiddle). Particular successes among the traditional songs are You Rambling Boys Of Pleasure (learnt from Tim Lyons), Knife In The Window (a version of Hares In The Mountain from the repertoire of Bill Whiting) and a beautifully phrased account of The Lover’s Ghost. An a cappella rendition of The Lass Of Maharalee also comes off well, even if Mick’s normally smooth timbre shows occasional signs of wear in the early stages of the song.
Disc highlights include the strictly non- traditional items in this collection. Dave Goul- der’s January Man is masterfully evoked by Paul, while the place-name-bedecked chorus song Beccles Gates (by Mal and Bill Jardine) is an attractive opener. Others are from the pen of Mick himself, including the disc’s title song (a sincere tribute to the folk scene which has given Mick and Paul so much pleasure), and a brilliantly animated retelling of the ballad of Summerwater.
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