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THE OLD FASHIONED Strawberry Leaves No Masters NMCD45


Here is a new trio who have decades of expe- rience with top folk bands playing a lovely varied selection of songs and tunes.


The three are Fi Fraser, Pete Bullock and Howard Mitchell and they bring a welcome freshness and delight to their performances on this superbly recorded production.


Fi does all the singing, usually to piano and double bass accompaniment and her voice comes over with a youthful sparkle; she sounds as though she really enjoys all these songs whether she is interpreting well known items from the English repertoire such as Our Captain Cried All Hands, William Taylor and The Bonny Labouring Boy, humor- ous items like Jack Lane’s The Rest Of The Day or the gem from Derek Pearce, Reversible Fleece or that ode to an aging dance queen, Stately As A Galleon.


The Ninetree Stumblers


A total of ten Clifton Chenier cuts docu- ment his versatile sound. From playing blues, boogie-woogie, fashionable dance tunes and pop songs, elements of country and western swing as well as two-steps and waltzes, he carved a style and earned a popularity that eclipsed any other Zydeco artist for two whole decades.


The collection ends with a glance back at its roots with Canray Fontenot and Bois-Sec Ardoin taking us home with some classic rural creole waltzes and blues.


Anyone looking for a better introduction to black creole music in SW Louisiana, or indeed a reminder of the scope and variety of this music should look no further than this. An absolute joy.


www.fremeaux.com Jock Tyldesley


THE NINETREE STUMBLERS


Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order (Vol 1) Nanny State Records NSCD-4001


Back in 1927, the Victor Talking Machine Company brought a field unit to Bristol, Ten- nessee, to record musicians from the region including Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. Fast forward to 2015 and Bristol UK and here’s The Ninetree Stumblers, a group “born a hundred years late and 4,000 miles too far East,” in thrall to the sounds of “the old, weird America”.


Ruth Gordon, Liam Kirby and Daniel


Weltman are all versatile and skilled, effort- lessly swapping instruments and tearing it up on guitar, fiddle, mandolin and banjo, with occasional harmonica, bass and percus- sion. Soldier’s Joy aside, they eschew the over-familiar in favour of more obscure gems like Old Hen Cackle, Ladies’ Quadrille and Uncle Ned’s Waltz, sourced from the magnificently-monikered likes of The Happy Hayseeds, Hoyt Ming And His Pep Steppers, Gid Tanner And The Skillet Lickers and the North Carolina Hawaiians.


Individually, their vocals aren’t quite in the same league as the instrumental chops, but when they harmonise, as on Fatal Wreck Of The Bus, they sound more than fine.


There’s a lovely self-deprecating and knowing humour about this release, exempli- fied by the title and cover design, which accu- rately and affectionately pastiche the venera- ble Document Records house style. A lot of


British groups play early American music, but The Ninetree Stumblers stand out from their more run-of-the-mill contemporaries, not only for their impressive mastery of the musi- cal form, but their understanding and feel for the function of it. This music just isn’t designed for a hushed concert performance, but to dance, drink and have a laugh with your mates to. Listening to this album will make you want to do all of that, just as going to one of their gigs will make you want to buy this album.


And also check out The Ninetree Stum- blers Radio Hour podcast, issued monthly via Mixcloud, iTunes, etc.


www.ninetreestumblers.co.uk Steve Hunt


SHANTEL Viva Diaspora Essay B00U6SW5HM


The Balkan beat boss is back with a bang. Germany’s Stefan Hantel aka Shantel burst onto the international scene a decade ago with an unapologetically crowd-pleasing blend of Balkan, electro disco and Caribbean influences, which got right up the hooters of purists and provided the rest of us with hours of thumping goodtime fun. Subsequent releases have been somewhat hit and miss and it looked very much as though Shantel was a man of the moment whose moment had passed. But now we have Viva Diaspora, billed in some quarters as his “Greek album” and there is certainly an East Med influence (both Greek and Turkish) here, bolstered by the involvement of trad Greek singer Areti Ketime (on the excellent Eastwest-Dysi Ki Anatoli) and Athens’ kindred spirit dance- floor genre blenders Imam Baildi.


But that’s only part of the story. There are Balkan-flavoured pop tunes, Latin Ameri- can influences and a pair of pumped up ver- sions of Jamaican reggae classics (The Ethiopi- ans’ The Whip and Max Romeo’s Chase The Devil, re-titled Disko Devil).


On paper this all sounds like a directionless


mess. Yet the album is one of the most coher- ently thought through and consistent I’ve encountered recently. There’s brains behind these beats. Blessed with an all pervading spirit of carnivalesque playfulness and lightness of rhythmic touch. It sounds as though Shantel’s back in the hot seat and enjoying himself again, to a highly infectious degree.


www.essayrecordings.com Jamie Renton


PEARLY CLOUDS Pearly Clouds Trapeze Music TRACD6514


Gary Lucas has only been nominated for a Grammy, been named as one of the 100 greatest guitarists on the planet, collaborat- ed with Jeff Buckley (and co-penned Buck- ley’s greatest song), performed and com- posed with Nick Cave and Patti Smith, paid musical homage to Herzog and Tarr, and been a member of the Beefheart Magic Band.


And he only plans to release three albums this year.


Comprehending the man’s picking, plucking, plans and back catalogue is a breathtaking undertaking. But most impres- sive is the unrelenting quality of his many projects. This album, an exquisitely unreal Hungarian heartland of the New York imagi- nation, is no exception.


He has joined up with the naturally ethe- real and yet tradition-centred vocals of Enik˝o Szabó and the endlessly experimental jazz stylings of saxophonist Tóni Dezs ˝o, to pro- duce a record of spiritual longing and time- less musical expansiveness. It is possible that many will be offended by the deceptive sim- plicity of the task and the many liberties taken. Others will be transported.


These are traditional songs – from Kalotaszeg, in particular – that every Hungar- ian singer seems to have attempted at least once. This accruing of interpretations is chipped away at here, and replaced with mys- tery, placing Dezs ˝o’s saxophones in a multi- layered world of his own invention. Through- out, Dezs ˝o replicates a hot Hungarian folk ensemble and a contemporary prog rock band with apparent unlimited licence. His contributions are eerie and unearthly, narra- tive-shaping improvisations or an extended


Pete Bullock’s career as a pianist has seen him play in widely varying situations with jazz as well as folk outfits as well as stage shows including the National Theatre. He adds cheeky fills to the funny items but brings an entirely different and appropriate accompaniment to songs of women in trag- ic circumstances such as Poor Murdered Woman and Jez Lowe’s very moving The Last Of The Widows.


Fi’s career has, of course, included play- ing with three of England’s top folk dance bands and there are opportunities to hear just what a fine fiddle player she is. On some of the dance tune tracks, Howard Mitchell switches from bass to melodeon and his com- position, Jack’s Seven Handed Reel is the most interesting and engaging of the instrumen- tals heard here.


www.nomasters.co.uk Vic Smith


Photo: © Judith Burrows


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