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fRoots 62 : your free album

Our pick of the very best new stuff. Load it onto your iPod or computer or burn it to CD. Go get it!

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ere’s the latest in our long series of carefully crafted and sought-after compilations that are designed to let you hear the best music –mostly on

small independent labels – that our writers get enthusiastic about in the pages of fRoots. Listen, then buy the original CDs!

In last issue’s feature on who the next big festival headliners might be, Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band were the top tip. Along with those Afro Celts they certainly wiped the floor with everybody else on last summer’s Cambridge coverage on Sky TV. First album in February! Preview!

Our Editor’s Choice Album Of The Year

Award this issue (and a Root Salad feature… go look) goes to Norwich trio Alden Pat- terson & Dashwood for their utterly beguiling self-released debut. If that heart- stopping blend of voice, guitar, fiddle and dobro doesn’t thrill you, you may be dead.

And then there’s funky, like only Malian music can be. Just when you thought you were all desert bluesed out, up comes this solid chunk of deep groove from Mandinka musician Abou Diarra, featuring Fula flute and blues harmonica, such a perfect blend you wonder why Muddy didn’t use it.

One of our notable discoveries of this

year’s English Folk Expo (OK, he’s been around for a while, maybe we’re just slow on the uptake!) was singer-guitarist Jack Harris, whose Gerry Diver-produced second album on folk label-of-the-moment Root- Beat is an absolute beauty.

You don’t need us to tell you what a staggeringly wonderful world class singer Bosnia’s Amira Medunjanin is. We could have homed in on another of her amazing

duets with pianist Bojan Z, but this album also showcases guitarist Bosco Jovic, here on a Macedonian traditional song.

Another hit of this year’s English Folk Expo, courtesy of their international part- nership exchange with Flanders, were Bel- gium’s sibling Trio Dhoore – Koen on hurdy gurdy, Hartwin on squeezebox and Ward on guitar. You can find out a lot more about them in our very next issue. Patience!

On the other hand, you can read all about “true born Irishman” Daoiri Farrell from page 51 this month. Firmly in the tra- ditions laid down by previous Irish music- greats like Andy Irvine, Christy Moore and Donal Lunny, but making it all his very own, he’s another one to watch.

Also featured this issue are the extremely dynamic duo of Scottish fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers & Juhani Silvola, Finnish guitarist. If you’re used to some folk fiddle/guitar duos being a tad predictable, even when played well, these two push the boundaries and up the energy level.

OK, you’ve had some Malian blues and some Bosnian near-blues, it’s time for another dose of Occitan blues from the Marseille region, as delivered by the inim- itable Moussu T e lei Jovents – led as always by Tatou and Blu from the excellent Massilia Sound System.

In the summer of 1972, your editor pro- duced an album by legendary American zen banjo player Derroll Adams which many fans (and he has numerous famous ones) rate as his best, but has never been re-issued on CD until now. Featuring another legend, the mighty Wizz Jones, on guitar.

Deroll was living in Belgium when he made that record, and living there now are

the companion parts of Voxtra, singers from the vocal traditions of Sardinia, Alba- nia, Madagascar, Finland and Belgium itself – brought to you by the label that also released the Refugees For Refugees project.

Once upon a time those flash-fingered box players from Ireland, Quebec and main- land Europe were the idols with the wow factor, but these days young English players like Owen Woods with his customised melodeons are giving them a run for their money. We blame Andy Cutting!

The terms ‘theatrical folk music’, ‘fairy tales’ and ‘concept album’ might cause some of you to slowly bang your heads on your desks, but no! Let’s hear it again for Bristol’s very own Heg & The Wolf Chorus (you heard their nautical flavoured Three Sailors on fRoots 55, remember!)

In case you haven’t noticed, there are some interesting evolutions going on right now in Irish folk music. Among them are the remarkable Ensemble Ériu, “a chamber ensemble of some of Ireland’s most exciting young musicians from a range of perfor- mance backgrounds”.

And then there are Irish musicians who

head off on totally different musical tan- gents. Multi-instrumentalist Ross Daly has been living in Crete for so long that he may as well be native-born, and here he leads a wonderful group accompanying Cretan singer Evgenia Damavoliti-Toli.

And finally, you read about them last month, some proper-job Northumbrian country dance fiddle music from the Windy Gyle Band (with guest Kathy Anderson on piano) on The Ronald Cooper Jig – which isn’t from Northumberland, or a jig, but you’re not about to make a fuss, are you?!