provides many attractive additional details too, although new electric guitarist Julian Littman has not yet achieved the aplomb Ken Nicol eventually developed. It all adds up to a truly powerful and distinctive soundscape, recognisably Steeleye Span’s own and still evolving.
Oh yes, and finally, that ‘b’ word? Well, unlike those associated with some businesses, do check out the pricing. You may well feel the tag is reasonably applied and the whole double issue is a great way of capturing the 2011 experience especially if, like me, you missed them live and local at the time!
Kevin T. Ward IAN BRUCE
Hits & Pieces: The First 30 Years Ruglen Records LUMSCD0111
Ian Bruce, a well known name on the British folk scene, has brought out what looks like the ‘collected works’ of a folksinger. A package consisting of a double CD, a DVD and booklet which takes us through from the past to the present of Ian’s long career in folk music. The wonderful collection of songs chosen for this album shows both Ian’s fruitful cooperation with other singers and songwriters, his great renditions of traditional songs and of course a large proportion of his own material.
The Touch And The Go is a fine example of the joint efforts of Ian Bruce and Ian Walker, a bittersweet story of love lost in the values of our fast moving modern society. There are great versions of traditional and Burns’ songs such as Annie Laurie, Now Westlin’ Winds and The Bleacher Lassie Of Kelvinhaugh. Favourites among Ian’s own songs are Child On The Green, which looks at the strangeness of human nature seen from a child’s perspective, the love song Too Far From She, and Ghost Of The Chair, a comment on the death penalty.
Ian Bruce has a great many talented backing musicians on this compilation adding depth and variety to the songs. He has written some fine songs and definitely has an ear for a good tune. Can’t wait till he brings out volume two…
Pernille R. Quigg LA BOTTINE SOURIANTE
Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée Borealis BCD211
A few changes of line-up, a change of label, a change of website to
bottinesouriante.com, and after a few years in the wilderness La Bottine is back! Long rated as the best band on the planet, and still firmly in the first division of traditional music worldwide, this 11-piece group has not lost any of its bite since the 2003 release of Jamais Tant Ri. Seven songs and five instrumentals get the familiar jumping jiving jazz-funk fusion treatment, colouring these Québecois melodies right down to their traditional folk roots. Weeping trombones, blaring sax and soaring trumpet are overlaid on ballads such as Cette Bouteille-Là and Le Gourmand, celebrating the comestible pillars of
Sponsored by BIrnam CD
This is the eponymous release by the 2011 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winners - Tom Moore (fiddle), Archie Churchill-Moss (melodeon), and Jack Rutter (guitar and vocals).
In the context of the remarkable quality of young musicians emerging today, what characterises this trio is the maturity and sophistication of their music. Their use of tone, texture and dynamic is outstanding. Awesome virtuosity is applied judiciously, with refinement and intellect, and far from the meteoric storms of energetic playing that can typify some young groups. The mood feel here is one of intense musicality, mellowness, delicacy, elegance, and honed classical precision.
The 10 pieces, seven presented as sets and including two songs delivered with appealing vernacular voicing (including a clever and distinctively original interpretation of The
French Canadian culture. Button box and fiddle pump and grind through Reel Calgary, the G major Alain André, and the final hypnotic reel Le Baillard.
There’s a strong emphasis on percussion too, with Eric Beaudry and David Boulanger both providing podorhythmie - foot percussion - and Sandy Silva as a front-line dancer. This album adds the Basque duo Oreka TX on big bad banging stuff, the primal notes and rhythms of the txalaparta featuring particularly on Chus Chatouilleux and Intsusadi. With guitars, keyboards and bass, the overall sound is as full and complex as you’d imagine. I last saw La Bottine live during the 2010 Winter Olympics, a great showcase for Canadian music, and their stage presence is awesome: this CD comes close to the same level of intensity. There’s light and shade enough here - the romantic Au Rang d’Aimer, the gentle fiddle and whistle opening to Reel Calgary - but my preference is for the livelier numbers, sung or played: On Va Barrer les Portes, Mon Père, and the wonderful Reel à Roland with its echoes of La Bottine’s trademark Soucoupes Volantes. Canadian class, with a generous splash of Club: this recording is long overdue, and all the more welcome for that.
Alex Monaghan Kevin T. Ward
MOORE MOSS RUTTER RootBeat Records RBRCD10
SIMON BRADLEY TRIO
Grogarry Lodge Sheem Music SHEEM01
It’s a pretty appealing idea, really; “let’s go to an old lodge house in South Uist, stay there for a few days, play a concert and record an album.” That’s an invitation I’m still waiting for, but there are good musical reasons for that! As a concept, though, this has worked brilliantly.
The trio are the eponymous Simon Bradley, fiddle, viola, mandolin; Anna-Wendy Stevenson, fiddle, viola ; and Matheu Watson, guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle. The combinations of instrumentation are numerous and consistently engaging. The extra depth that a viola can bring to a set of tunes is highlighted in the overall sound, which is rich and layered, whilst always perfectly balanced. There is a swing jazz feel to a number of the tracks, whilst others reflect the influences on Simon of his time with the magnificent Asturian group Llan de Cubel. Indeed, the only two tunes on the whole CD which were not written by Simon are Asturian (and he wrote the second parts of them, too.) That doesn’t mean that it’s a one-man band by any means, as the crossover of instruments allow Anna-Wendy and Matheu to take an equal share of the credit for the overall sound. There are several wind-farms’ worth of energy in the playing, and an exceptional tightness to the whole album, and the quality is just what you’d expect from such a talented threesome.
For those who can read music, all the tunes are contained in Simon and Pierce Bradley’s book, Buncrana To Baleshare, as are the stories behind the tune titles. This is a CD which should be in everyone’s collection.
Gordon Potter The Living Tradition - Page 51
Galway Shawl), combine arrangements of mainly English traditional material and composed pieces. They offer a wide range of sophisticated soundscapes and rhythmic range with some sublime and moving moments of magic and beauty, as well as some carefully engineered spasms of driving frenzy!
The track information mentions inspiration from Methera, Wood and Cutting, Fred Jordan, Dave Burland, and Pete Cooper and drawing on the John Clare MSS, Playford and the Morris tradition. Their mindset is certainly influenced by wider European folk traditions and jazz. Karen Tweed’s Scandinavian projects come to mind as, from the English perspective, does the lovely work by 1651 and Boldwood.
Jack’s guitar work on Lapwings At Night exhibits advanced Michael Hedges style tapping and percussive techniques to exquisite effect and there are some discreetly applied jazzy inflections elsewhere. This piece, as indeed the whole recording, benefits from Andy Bell’s brilliant production to whom some credit must go for the dynamic range (the depth of bass tonalities taken from the melodeon and guitar for example), movement and ambience of the music. This is an entirely captivating debut album.
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