57 f
jazz that’s superbly executed. They’ve always been a party folk band, but this release shows that they’re still adding layers and layers on top of that. With more confidence and more gigs under their collective belt, the band tries plenty that’s new, like the Cuban opening to Den Ny Maskerade, giving Danish folk a whole new context. More than that, they never lose their sense of fun; it’s palpable throughout the record. There is a smidgen of singing – well, close to slightly drunken bawl- ing – on the title cut and on Gefion, but with instrumental chops this good and this varied, they have what they need. Habadekuk and Bellowhead on the same bill, now that would be one hell of a night.
www.habadekuk.dk Chris Nickson
GREG RUSSELL & CIARAN ALGAR The Call Fellside FECD262
You can’t move these days for tedious hacks bleating on about how brilliant young musicians are and how annoying it is that they don’t do anything meaning- ful, different or original with all their copious talent. I should know – I’m one of
those tedious hacks.
Not sure where that leaves Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar who are brilliant, aren’t doing anything desperately different or origi- nal with it, yet still sound… well… brilliant. They may not quite have captured the magic of their live set on this second album and there’s nothing remotely groundbreaking in a bunch of songs and tunes that might have come from any time across the last few decades. Yet Greg Russell’s voice has a rare sort of majesty, Algar’s fiddle is engagingly empa- thetic and honest with a lovely tone, the mate- rial is unhackneyed and well chosen, arrange- ments refreshingly simple and understated. These two surely are the real deal and this sounds like a timeless classic. Indeed, with Boden and Spiers vacating the premises, the path is surely open for them to fill the void and notch up a third BBC Folk Award next year, this time in the Big Boys’ section as Best Duo.
There’s something of Tim Van Eyken in
Russell’s delivery, singing with a vulnerable clarity which, at its best, delivers an emotive ballad like Royal Comrade (as featured on this issue’s fRoots 50 compilation) or The Rose In June with a subtle, emotional kick. No artifice,
Greg Russell & Ciaran Algar
no affectation, no false thrills, just honest to goodness spills and when the song is good enough, the delivery is right and the arrange- ment appropriate, that’s more than enough.
Some interesting choices of covers also make you sit up and take notice – Mick Ryan’s The Workhouse from his folk opera The Pau- per’s Path; Phil Colclough’s misty-eyed The Call & Answer, with Russell’s nostalgic con- certina even recalling the great Tony Rose; and a lovely bouzouki rhythm underpinning their confident delve into Americana with James Keelaghan’s heartbreaking story of the 1949 Mann Gulch fire, Cold Missouri Waters, a match for their previous show-stopper, The New Railroad. Throw in a couple of impres- sive songs by Ciaran’s dad Chris – Away From The Pits and A Season In Your Arms – plus the odd alluring harmony from Elly Lucas ad Jeana Leslie adding some genteel piano to Russell’s unaccompanied opening vocal on The Rose In June and you have a quiet, thoughtful but deeply impressive collection.
www.russellalgar.co.uk Colin Irwin
MIKE COOPER Trout Steel Paradise of Bachelors PoB-13
Places I Know / The Machine Gun Co with Mike Cooper Paradise of Bachelors PoB-14
Very welcome reissues (on vinyl, too, ya hip- sters) of Mike Cooper’s third, fourth and fifth albums from the early 1970s. Having come up through the Great British Blues Scare of the previous decade, at this time he was known primarily as a fine slide guitarist (which he still, of course, is) and songwriter. On these LPs he moved beyond the constrictions of the genre, adding free-jazz improvisations and stretching out on ten-minute-plus songs and instrumentals, which still sound extraordinary and bring some of Tim Buckley’s later work to mind, but with a more solid core. Places I Know, with its nod to other contemporary songwriters (check out the killer Blonde On Blonde-era Dylan track), was originally intended as the first half of a double LP, the second half, The Machine Gun Co…, moving into Albert Ayler / Beefheart territory: hear- ing them as intended only makes Cooper’s mastery of the styles and inspired vision the more telling. He was out on his own here and ahead of his time, making these much more than curios; well worth a listen or three.
www.paradiseofbachelors.com Ian Kearey
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