f104 DAVEY & DYER
Dynamite Quay (Cornish Nos Lowen Dance Music) Dalla DACD08
Neil Davey (bouzouki and fiddle) and Jen Dyer (viola) are leading stalwarts of the Cor- nish traditional music scene, and both are members of the famous, trailblazing Cornish folk group Dalla. The deep, gristy tone of Dyer’s viola is a perfect fit for the antiquity of some of these tunes. And Davey’s bouzouki is well-suited to the complex rhythms of some of the Cornish dances.
The duo perform the broad repertoire of Cornish music here, both new and old, recently composed or found in manuscripts, ranging from stonking jigs, reels and polkas, to the rhythmically complex, almost Balkan-sounding Cornish five-step dances. The album also includes some beautiful slower pieces like The Holy Well (an old traditional tune collected in Camborne in 1913), the surging-yearning melody An Oula (The Owl), and the wistful, wil- lowy composition Elsie’s Harmonium.
If you don’t know Cornish music, you’ll find that listening to this music is like recog- nising a stranger that you’ve never met. The loping rhythm of the Cornish Nos Lowen dance tunes recalls the Fest Noz dance nights of Brittany. Lovers of Welsh and early English music will detect tantalisingly familiar quali- ties in some of these tunes, like the Karol Korev (Beer Carol) with its very old melody associated with the carol When God First Cre- ated Man. Or try the frenetic Old Nameless tune from the 1808 manuscript of John Old, ‘Dancing Master of Par’, or the foot-stomping Not Too Young To Marry Yet from the 1858 tune book of Michael Harris of St. Dennis.
tonyow.co.uk/dynamite-quay Paul Matheson
THE OTHER YEARS The Other Years No Quarter NOQ 060-2
The Other Years are Anna Krippenstapel (Joan Shelly’s ‘longtime fiddle player’) and guitar and banjo player Heather Summers. They’ve been singing together “in cars and in kitchens and around old-time music festival campfires” for ten years, but this is their debut duo recording (and Heather’s first). Captured over three days in a Kentucky cabin by Daniel Martin Moore, it is a thing of rare and spatial beauty.
Jaune Toujours
Their own songs are rich in regional character and reference, marrying contempo- rary experience to traditional form. Could there be a more locationally evocative title than Chapel On Pine Mountain? That song’s lyrical almost-referencing of Swing And Turn Jubilee, and Sinks Of Gandy’s borrowed melody from the traditional fiddle tune Maysville serve to emphasise their place in the Appalachian continuum – not as ambas- sadors for the past but as emissaries of the future. White Marble is a beautiful slow waltz-time song, gracefully carried on old- time fiddle and guitar.
The traditional murder ballad Fair Ellen – learned from a Jean Ritchie recording – is sung in spine-tingling unaccompanied har- mony, while tribute is paid to another hero in a fine version of Michael Hurley’s Wildgeeses.
The work of Appalachian artist Crystal Hurt will be familiar to anyone who owns a copy of House And Land’s eponymous album, or Sarah Louise’s Field Guide. This record comes clothed in another of her stunning paintings. An album of deep resonance and understated strength.
Hear a track on this issue’s fRoots 71 compilation.
theotheryears.bandcamp.com Steve Hunt
JAUNE TOUJOURS Europeana Choux De Bruxelles LC15565
You may well be familiar with ‘Americana’, a US musi- cal style which mainly seems to involve twanging guitars and whiney vocals. But how about ‘Europeana’? Proba- bly not a term you’ve come across before. Although it’s as good a description as any
for the brassy, multilingual, mixed-up noise that Juane Toujours have been making for the past two decades or so.
Europeana is their seventh album prop- er (not counting various spin-off projects and a remix set) and in many ways it’s business as usual for the Brussels-based six-piece: socially conscious lyrics sung in a variety of lan- guages and a range of genres and influences stirred together in unexpected but satisfac- tory combinations.
This is European music alive to the full range of cultures from without and within that define what ‘European’ means (in spite of what the bigots may say). There are influ- ences from the Middle East, West Africa and the Balkans, alongside ska, jazz, funk, folk and punk. Of course it’s political, responsive to the mess we face now (in Europe and across the world). But like all the best politi- cal music, it’s also danceable, poetic and brim- ming with wit. In the past, comparisons have been drawn with Manu Chao and The Clash (there is something Strummer-esque about lead singer Piet Maris’s declamatory drawl) but JT are definitely their own men, with a sound heavy on the three-piece brass section and Maris’s pumping accordeon.
Thanks to strong material and sympa- thetic stripped-down production, this is their most consistent and satisfying release yet. It’s also a reminder of the joys of the physical artefact, with the CD set into an LP-sized hard-backed book full of photos and tran- scriptions of the lyrics. I’m sure it’s available to download as well. But, really, why would you want to?
jaunetoujours.com Jamie Renton
KARINE POWART Laws Of Motion Hudson HUD04
After last year’s airy but focused masterpiece A Pocket Of Wind Resistance, Karine Polwart returns to the studio, resuming her long-term musical collaboration with neighbour Inge Thompson (accordeon, percussion, synths, vocals) and brother Stephen Polwart (guitar, vocals) presenting a truly impressive clutch of songs addressing wider issues involving movement and change. With a lovely tune, the plaintive opener Ophelia, about the unusual weather patterns setting off wild- fires across Southern Europe, turns out to be horribly prescient. Always an outstanding storyteller, Matsuo’s Welcome To Muckhart tells of the unlikely founding of a Japanese garden in Clackmannanshire, while the urgent but low-key Suitcase relates to the Kindertransport getting Jewish children away from the Nazis before WW2.
With a crystal-clear and articulate voice that cuts through to the core of the matter in hand, one keeps hearing phrases painting pictures that just stick in the mind. Never more so than in Cassiopeia, looking back to her nine-year-old self trying to understand precautionary advice on nuclear war – “When the siren sounds above the BP in Grange- mouth / We’re gonna hide in the jam cup- board.” Yesterday’s problem? Maybe not! Meanwhile the foreboding images of Sidney Carter’s Crow On The Cradle (the only song from another writer) fit the mood and times perfectly. But perhaps the most impressive track is I Burn But I Am Not Consumed, using the Clan MacDonald motto to wrap around some Lewisian gneiss’ spoken observations on Scotland’s favourite golf course developer.
Karine and her musical partners are clearly comfortable with each other, and the arrangements don’t go far beyond the sound the trio can and does produce live on stage. There’s a freshness and sense of urgency that makes Laws Of Motion as much a remarkable landmark album as Faultlines was all those years ago, and all the more so considering the many other strings to her bow. It’s time Karine Polwart was truly acknowledged as a National Treasure.
karinepolwart.com Bob Walton
Photo: Roger Van Vooren
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