---

NOVEMBER 2024

---

LUKE JACKSON

Bloom

First Take Records, FTCD006

www.lukepauljackson.com

Singer-songwriter Luke Jackson keeps you guessing in his fifth and latest album, Bloom; he walks a very fine line between super-tight in-your-face hard rock and oh-so-beautiful solo acoustic guitar contemporanea.  With every song, he hooks the audience into his world, weaving stories that resonate with authenticity and heart. The album reflects the diverse experiences and influences he has encountered in his life throughout his musical career, strengthening his reputation as one of the most compelling and enigmatic voices in the UK music scene.

This is a deeply personal collection of songs that highlight Luke’s lyrical prowess and his ability to connect with his fans. Never one to be pigeonholed, the album covers his increasingly eclectic range of memories, taking in composer, new-folk, alternative indie, Blues and Americana in equal measure. Luke says that Bloom is “a reflection of the last five years of my personal life; I’ve poured an awful lot into these songs, drawing from the highs and lows throughout my twenties, being a touring musician from the incredible people I’ve met along the way. It’s about growth, change and continuing to find beauty in the journey, even through the challenging times.”

Highlights include ‘Rubber & Magic’, featuring the compelling harmony of Amy Wadge; Luke’s soaring voice on the rocky ‘Curse the Day’; the gospel-like acapella ‘Trouble Now’; the rippling acoustic guitar of the lovely ‘Rainbow Valley’; ‘Hummingbirds of Kingston’, with its tasty jazz riff and his amazing vocals; and Edwina Hayes joins him on the final folk-flavoured track, ‘Beside You’, all solo acoustic guitar and really gorgeous sounds. The album registers a waymark for Luke, showcasing his maturity as a songwriter and his continued commitment to pushing the boundaries of his craft.

---

BOXSETUK

Tinderbox Heart

Independent release; no catalogue number

www.boxsetuk.com

 BoxSetUK are two old colleagues and members of the bad-boy folk band Pressgang, accordionist George Whitfield and singer and acoustic guitarist Tony Lyons; they have spent the past couple of years travelling the UK and Europe, successfully performing their songs to festival audiences. Before Pressgang retired, both George and Tony went their different ways. George settled in South Wales and immersed himself in the traditional music of the Welsh nation, while also starting a business restoring and repairing accordions – his instrument of choice. Both he and violinist Helen Adam formed the duo Fiddlebox and recorded three impressive albums; Tony, meanwhile, started The Lightyears and toured the UK, US and South Africa, as well as founding the Drum Club music education project and working as a session player and sync composer.

Initially coming together as a lockdown project in the summer of 2020, the plan for BoxSetUK at first was to play a one-off festival in Belgium before returning to their own projects. However, once the world returned to live music, it became a more permanent thing; appearances at folk and steampunk festivals across the UK were in the diary book, followed by this debut album. Recorded and produced by Nick Swannell at Studio 49 in the Pembrokeshire town of Narberth, Tony and George totally hook the festival fans with in-your-face brash music and whopping drum beats, peppered with well-known accordion-led dance tunes. The top-hatted pair whirl through Tony’s verging-on-pop material, from the opener ‘Robert Johnson’ and ‘Beautiful Flying’ to ‘Wolf Moon’, ‘South Georgia’ and their ferocious take on Rabbie Burns’ poem ‘Devil’s Away’.

The final track is George and Tony’s impression of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous work ‘Crossing the Bar’; they certainly know how to please and ignite the jigging, dancing crowd. The spirit of Pressgang lives on!

---

SECKOU KEITA

Homeland (Chapter 1)

Hudson Records, HUD053CD

https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/product/seckou-keita—homeland

After his sold-out tours and smash-hit albums with the brilliant Cardiff harpist Catrin Finch, kora star, composer and griot Seckou Keita is moving on to form an adventurous project that signals a return to his West African roots. Born in Senegal but based in the UK for the past 25 years, he is now lead musician of his Homeland band; in the band’s striking debut album, Homeland (Chapter 1), he questions just where is his home. In Songlines magazine, he says: “During Covid, when we were all stuck at home and couldn’t go out… is my home in Nottingham, or Senegal? Is home a space, or a landscape? Is it where you grew up, or work, or live now? I’m not a writer, and music is my only way to answer something like this.”

The kora was developed in West Africa in the 13^th century and is fashioned from a gourd, cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator with a long hardwood neck. It has 21 strings, each of which plays a different note and is supported by a double free-standing bridge. The kora goes back a long time in history, but Seckou continues to defy categories with a stunning body of work that skillfully fuses traditional music and rhythms with pop sounds, embracing afro-pop, urban, hip-hop and the spoken word – it’s a sheer rainbow of cultures and sounds. This very tasty 12-track collection was recorded and mixed across four countries: Senegal, the UK, Belgium and Germany. The album is a mixture of four languages: Mandinka, Wolof, English and French, from an array of extraordinary guests and collaborators.

From now on, Homeland (Chapter 1) seethes, bubbles and totally surprises. The opening track, ‘Bienvenue’, fires off with the entrancing melodies of the kora and the voice and preserver of Mandinka Culture, Abdoulaye Sidibé, followed on by ‘Home Sweet Home’, recorded at 3am in the morning by the chorus vocals of Senegalese rap duo Daara J. Family. ‘Chaque Jour’ features the lovely Bah Kouyate, and ‘Reflections’ is the spoken words of black British performance poet Zena Edwards, born in Hackney, London and exploring her African roots. ‘Deportation Blues’ is the sombre work of British writer Hannah Lowe, born in Ilford, known for her 2013 ‘Chick’ collection of poetry and for her painstaking research on the ship Empire Windrush and Caribbean migration; Seckou accompanies the shimmering kora while she describes the evil, shocking policy perpetrated by the last government.

Seckou’s venerable instrument continues to shine above the drums, keyboards, guitars and basses to create a thrilling and utterly wonderful sensation, and the last words are his: “At the heart of Homeland is storytelling, an essential part of the griot tradition, which has been shaped over centuries and is an integral part of my life and my culture. Above all else, we are the preservers of stories and history.”

---

OCTOBER 2024

---

ERIC BIBB

 In The Real World

Repute Records SPCD/LP1487

www.ericbibb.com

Legendary blues troubadour Eric Bibb’s glittering career spans an amazing five decades, and his musical life is just overflowing with an impressive catalogue over 40 albums, three Grammy nominations, a multitude of Blues Foundation awards and countless more accolades. On the successful cusp of his Live at the Scala Theatre release, his latest offering In the Real World is just wonderful. Armed with only his acoustic guitar, banjo guitar, nylon-string guitar and his heart-warming and magnetically soulful voice, he recorded this album in rock star Peter Gabriel’s iconic Real World Studios. Eric’s long-time collaborator, co-songwriter and musical director Glen Scott produces, arranges and mixes the 15 tracks, as well as performing on drums, banjo, mandolin, bass and a host of instruments for good measure, rounding up with his backing vocals. Robbie McIntosh plays an absolute dream on electric, acoustic and slide guitars, and a glittering line-up of exquisite musicians and vocalists join Eric in an appetising must-hear set. Katie May, whom Eric describes as “a terrific engineer’’, works her very special wonders, and the whole album smacks strongly of a good-time atmosphere and thoroughly entertaining and uplifting sounds.

Eric is a vibrant blues storyteller whose recording output is multiplying to industrial proportions – and it’s all the more remarkable that he’s just 73 years of age. Born on August 16, 1951 as an African American, his youth was spent totally immersed in the New York Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s. Famous names like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger were visitors to his home, and he was deeply drawn to Odetta, Ritchie Havens and Taj Mahal, mixing up these influences into a style uniquely his very own. His father was the late Leon Bibb, an activist, actor and folk singer who marched at Selma with Dr Martin Luther King.

In The Real World sparks off with ‘Take The Stage’; his rich-chocolate vocals are crystal-clear and his acoustic guitar sounding oh-so prominent and confident. A lot of trendy producers have been guilty of swamping the artist’s voice, but Eric’s bell-like vocals come shining through. ‘Walk Steady On’ and ‘Everybody’s Got a Right’ follow, and Eric rings the changes; violinists David Davison and David Angell, viola player Monisa Angell and cellist Carole Rabinowitz accompany him in ‘Best I Can’. Every song keeps you guessing, which is the beauty of it; ‘Make a Change’ has Robbie on slide guitar, ‘This River (Chains & Free)’ is just heaven, while the prowling ‘Stealin’ Home’ includes Jerome Browne on harmonica, backed by those four-voice harmonies. Fiddler Esbjörn Hazelius stands out on ‘If There’s Any Rute’, and Robbie has a field day on the bleak song ‘Neshoba County’.

Eric writes ‘Dear Mavis’ by himself and records it solo with his acoustic guitar; in complete contrast, the musicians pile in for the raucous ‘Roll On Buddy’. Glen accompanies him on mandolin on ‘Judgment Day’, and Eric sincerely doffs his hat in gratitude in the singable ‘The Real World’. Lily James is featured in the final bonus track, ‘Victory Voices’, and she and Eric soar together in song; it’s a glorious finisher. It goes without saying that he really is the cream of the Blues crop – and boy, can he play guitar…

---

THE TANNAHILL WEAVERS

Solstice

Hedera Records HRCD124

www.tannahillweavers.com

 Congratulations to the Tannahill Weavers, who have celebrated an incredible 56 years flying the proud saltire for Scotland. The band came together following a 1968 session in Paisley in the Scottish Lowlands; they plumped for the name, which described the town’s historic weaving industry and local poet laureate Robert Tannahill, and they have been storming on and being stout stalwarts of the Scottish scene ever since. In fact, the prestigious Glasgow festival Celtic Connections called them: “Seminal trailblazers; the Tannahill Weavers now also rank as national treasures.” Many musicians have played in the quartet, including the praiseworthy songwriter Dougie Maclean and the excellent fiddler and ex-Easy Club member John Martin, who retired in 2019 after spending 30 glorious years touring and gigging. The only founding members are banjoist Roy Gullane and flautist and singer Phil Smillie, who also plays whistles and bodhrán; the ‘new boys’ – if they can be called that – are Highland bagpiper Iain MacGillivray, a fluent Gaelic speaker who plays fiddle, whistles and vocalises, and fiddler and bouzouki player Malcolm Bushby.

It’s nearly the back-end of October and the Festive Season is in likely danger of rushing up like some manic express train, and Roy, Phil, Iain and Malcolm are already releasing Solstice – which, unlike their other albums, is mostly instrumental. They pile on the goodwill on the opening track, the ‘S Ann an Ìle Set’, which roars into the French dance tune ‘Branle de ‘l’Official’ by a 16^th-century composer writing under the pen name of Jehan Tabourot, and the words have been added to become the carol ‘Ding Dong Merrily On High’. They jig-swing into Samuel Wesley’s 17^th-century arrangement for the fortepiano, which sounds very much like ‘God Rest You Merry Gentlemen’, and just explodes into wonderful Puírt a Beul singing from lovely-voiced guest Annia MacGillivray, a rising super talent of Scottish traditional music and sister to Iain, while the band joins together in vocal harmony. Annia and Iain’s father was Duncan MacGillivray, the Battlefield Band’s first piper, and Iain has played with the Tannahill Weavers going on for three years.

The band possess a unique quality of cherry-picking some well-known chestnuts and moulding them into their own particular genre – the following track, ‘Winter Wonderland’, proves the very good point. Felix Bernhardt wrote the tune to accompany lyrics by Richard Bernhard Smith, which he wrote while being treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Pennsylvania; the song became one of the greatest hits of 1934. In complete contrast, Iain wrote the melody in the middle, and he calls it ‘Tinsel to Tayport’. The Tannies breeze through the ‘Winter Solstice Set’ and the Tchaikovsky-inspired ’The Nutcracker March’; in ‘Tranquility’, they salute the music of composer Gustav Holst, which was put to a poem by Christina Rosetti in 1872, called ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’. They turn ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ on its head into a gay jig, and Phil smartly composes the second part of the tune. The last melody is loosely based on ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ by Felix Mendelsson, although they have changed the timing and adapted it to fit on the Highland bagpipes – it works well!

In ‘Annia’s Song’, Annia graces her wonderful voice with ‘O Cha Bhi Nollaig’, which describes a terrible storm when the waves were so high that the ferry was unable to dock; the islanders had to watch in despair as it sailed away with all their Christmas goods on board. In contrast, Friedmann Stickle was a Shetland fiddler in the late 18^th and early 19^th century, and apparently he was nick-named ‘Stumpie’ because he walked with a limp. He composed ‘Christmas Day ida Mornin’ while tramping on the road to his croft, and the band tribute his lovely melody perfectly.

‘New Year’s Waltz’ was written by master fiddler Gordon Gunn; the tune snippet was composed by Phil and is called ‘An Cliseam’, the highest mountain on the Isle of Harris. The first tune in ‘Celtic Yuletide’, which accompanies the carol ‘Silent Night’, was written Franz Xaver Gruber in 1818; the second is a traditional Scottish melody ‘Bunessan’, made famous by Cat Stevens as the tune he used for ‘Morning Has Broken’. The Tannies bow out with the jig-time ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and following that is Phil’s bright composition – as they said, it’s a nice way to finish the album and welcome in the brand new year.

---

ALISON MCMORLAND with JO ALLEN and KIRSTY POTTS  

Some Ballads of Anna Gordon, Mrs Brown of Falkland (double CD)

Independent release, AGB01

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

www.alisonmcmorland.com

Alison McMorland is a truly great teacher and ambassador of Scottish traditional song; in fact, on the release of her debut recording all those years ago in 1976, the respected Scottish poet, songwriter and folk song collector Hamish Henderson described her as “one of the principal modern interpreters of an ancestral ballad singing tradition, breathing new life into ancient memorials by uniting traditional fidelity with versatile and resourceful artistry.” How absolutely true.

This double album is a major event for ballad scholarship, classic versions of twelve story songs from one of the earliest and most famous Scottish sources, with notes and commentary by leading singers and scholars. The repertoire of Anna Gordon, living in the county of Fife, collected in the closing years of the eighteenth century, has long been a standard reference point for folklorists, but never before has it actually been heard.

Commissioned to accompany Ruth Perry’s landmark new biography The Ballad World of Anna Gordon, Mrs Brown of Falkland – published by the Oxford University Press – these performances by Alison as project coordinator and artistic director, have unlocked a wonderful new soundscape into these ancient tales. Two traditional singers are on the album: Jo Miller is a fiddler, ethnomusicologist and community musician based in Stirling, working in many educational developments including founding the traditional music course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; and Alison’s daughter Kirsty Potts, who has sung on five albums with Alison and her partner Geordie McIntyre and recorded a solo album herself.

Alison has made the twelve ballads stupendously magical. She weaves her hypnotic tales, the transfixed audience hanging on her every word; in the opening track, ‘Thomas Rymer and the Queen of Elfland’, Mrs Brown wrote in her notes: “The tradition concerning this ballad is, that Thomas Rymer when young, was carried away by the Queen of Elfland or fairyland, who retain’d him in her service for seven years, during which period he is supposed to acquired all the wisdom which afterwards made him so famous.” The first track lasts six and a quarter minutes; Jo Miller rings the changes on the supernatural ballad ‘Kempion’, and Alison returns with the heart-warming story of ‘Lady Elspat’. The 17-minute account of ‘The Cruel Sister’ has seeded many corresponding songs, from the traditional Appalachian to the Irish chorus belter; ‘Clerk Colven’ ignores warnings by his wife and meets the malevolent maiden; and ‘Young Beckie’ travels in France, falls in love with the French king’s daughter and is imprisoned. The ballad lasts just shy of 14 minutes.

The bloody eight-minute ‘Lambkin’ was described by the late Edward J. Cowan as “perhaps the most horrific ballad in the entire cannon”, and the female in ‘King Henry’ is bizarre in the extreme. The lady is left alone in ‘Brown Adam’, while her husband goes off to hunt venison; the false knight is attempting to bribe her for sexual favours.       Alastair Roberts’ guitar and Alison perform breath-taking and beautiful wonders on ‘The Gay Goss Hawk’ which lasts twelve minutes; and the final gripping tale is of ‘Lady Maisry’, who is courted by many Scottish noblemen. She firmly rejects these overtures in favour of an English lord, to whom she is secretly betrothed and whose child she is carrying. Maisry’s brother finds out and tells his sister to end the relationship; she refuses, though her fate is death by burning. She finally dies in the fire while giving birth; the ballad lasts over nine minutes.

There’s a welcome booklet, which helpfully guides the listener through the ballads; and Kirsteen McCue, University of Glasgow’s professor of Scottish Literature and Song Culture, writes: “The singing by MacMorland, Miller and Potts is fresh and clear, with the words and story taking precedence. The sensitive choices of tunes and performances, including instruments that Anna Gordon would have used herself, gives these ballads a real sense of authenticity, bringing out the dramatic, sometimes theatrical, qualities of our national ballads.”

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Born out of a New Voices commission for the Glasgow Celtic Connections festival, the three-act Folkmosis (self released, BAM104) is singer-songwriter Beth Malcolm’s spoken-word and written-song autobiographical account of a young Scottish female artist finding her place in the creative and musical world. She takes the audience on a journey from the traditional music and the Scots tongue she was brought up with to an eclectic mix of modern, neo-soul and jazz influences that soundtracked her teenage years, and her album shows how land, language and music can knit together over time. There’s a host of instruments, including piano, fiddle, clarsach, accordion, bodhrán and strings, while Dalahan musicians Andrew Waite and Jack Badcock support her in a very heart-warming story. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Portuguese world music singer and songwriter Carmen Souza was born in Lisbon in 1981 to Cape Verdean parents, a sailor and his wife; she has been to the Cape Verde archipelago on only a few occasions, but she grew up speaking creole, eating Cape Verdean cuisine and performing in Cape Verdean traditional culture as well as contemporary jazz. Her latest album is Port’Inglês (Galileo GMC108), in which Carmen traces the colonial ties between her islands and the UK and lends her wonderful, assured voice, accompanied by piano and percussion; eight tracks of sheer delight. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

 ► Carmarthenshire sibling folk trio The Meadows have released a new single, entitled ‘Where Will it Lead?’, showcasing the sisters’ forthcoming album. Eldest sister Fantasia writes the haunting tune, which knits together layers of vocal harmonies, whistle, piano and featuring their brother and former band member Harvey on violin and Ryan Aston on drums. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Scottish-Indian singer songwriter and harpist Chloe Matharu used to perform in Pembrokeshire and a single Llantrisant Folk Club showcase, but she moved to the West Coast of Scotland a good few years ago. Many of her songs draw on her time as a navigational officer in the Merchant Navy, inspired by the natural world as experienced at sea. Her second independently released Bandcamp and compact disc, Sailors and Rolling Stones, is five tracks, from the traditional ‘The Silkie of Sule Skerry’ (which lasts just shy of seven minutes) to the five-and-half-minute ‘Sailing’s a Weary Life’ and the over-ten-minute blockbuster ‘Into the Earth’. Chloe’s startling soprano and gorgeous harmonies, the echoey celtic harp and the insistent-but-dreamy drum-like electronic soundscape, created by Glasgow-based Tomekeeper Productions, all combine to make a blissful, spacey sound; the only caveat is that all her lyrics are a little bit indistinguishable. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

 

► The six-strong Edinburgh-based bluegrass band Sociograss consist of fiddlers Ben Errington and Alex Riach, mandolinist Mark Hand, guitarist Tim Leslie, banjoist James Wright and double bassist James Hall; they have just released their impressive debut digital album, Made It All Up (Bandcamp), eight tracks highlighting bluegrass, old-time, early country and American roots, with a large dollop of self-composed inspirational music from the opening ‘Mousetrap Rag’ through ‘Henderson Street Breakdown’ and the finishing instrumental ‘Squirrely Riders’, which lasts just shy of nine minutes. All the musicians contribute to vocal harmony heaven – yee-hah! FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► International Belgian guitarist Florian De Schepper, alias ‘Flo’, comes from the city of Ghent and has been really active in the folk scene; he’s been involved in several bands, has won prizes and has been nominated for numerous awards. In 2022, he chose to travel to ten islands in Southern Europe and across the Atlantic with just a backpack and an acoustic guitar, playing his own very different eclectic compositions in his unique style and combining folk with classical, jazz and various world music genres. Islas (Trad Records, TRAD034) is a ten-track album in which he names each island, including ‘Hydra’, ‘Guadeloupe’, ‘Gran Canaria’, ‘Cyprus’ and ‘Sicilia’; it’s dreamily atmospheric and very absorbing. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

---

STEVE KNIGHTLEY

The Winter Yards

Independently released, HMC054

www.steveknightley.com/

 After an incredible 30 years of hectic wall-to-wall touring, six Royal Albert Hall sell-outs and three BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, this Show of Hands frontman and arguably one of the nation’s finest songwriters releases his first solo album in 17 years – and Steve Knightley doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet. He has already taking on himself a major 32-date autumn tour promoting The Winter Yards, starting with the full-house Acapela Studio gig in the village of Pentyrch, north of Cardiff, Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan,  all over England and his first-ever solo shows in Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

Now, with his long-standing partnership with multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer parked in the sidings for an indefinite rest, Steve is taking stock on his musical life: “I’ve spent much of my career weaving the West Country and English landscapes into my music, seeking to capture the essence of rural life and the stories that define it – but with Show of Hands now on sabbatical, I’ve found myself at a crossroads. It’s a moment to pause, reflect and consider new directions.”

After 17 years, Steve has relished this golden chance to prove himself; and this album is a shining outright winner. Mark Tucker has produced, mixed and mastered the 12 tracks and plays bass, percussion and keyboards; Steve plays guitar, tenor guitar, mandocello, bass and cuatro, and session musicians include Phil Beer on fiddle, Spanish guitar and vocals, dobro and harmonica wizard Phillip Henry (Edgelarks), Madrid-based Track Dogs, Jonny Kalsi on dhol drum and tabla, long-time collaborator Matt Clifford on keyboards, Cornish sister duo True Foxes and Dartmoor folk choir The Lost Sound.

Steve is well-known and celebrated for no-holds-barred edgy songwriting, which walks a fine line between folk ethics and the contemporary commercial scene. The opening track ‘Transactions’ starts off with a bang, and the song looks into three-pronged issues of our time; immigration, confusing gender problems and the terrible story of the Post Office scandal, which keeps on resurfacing and will not go away. ‘The Ride (The Winter Yards)’ focusses on a family-run country fair who had to close in the 2020 lockdown, suffering catastrophic losses which spelled the inevitable end; Phil Beer and Track Dogs exert a warm Spanish influence over the love song ‘Maria (Recuerdos)’; ‘If You Come Back’ centres on the charming but untrustworthy rat who wheedles his way into her heart, and the contemplative ‘I Tried’ was born one rain-soaked night in Bath, looking down from a Holiday Inn hotel window.

The haunting Acapela harmony song ‘Requiem’, enhanced by the beautiful voices of The Lost Sound and expertly arranged by conductor Sandra Smith, was originally written for Show of Hands’ Great War Centenary album; and the menacingly bitter ‘I’ll Never Forgive You’ has the true story of rallying round and supporting a friend who finally decided to leave the man who had cast a dark cloud over her life for 15 years. But when they were reunited, she attacked and turned on those who had stood by her side. Meanwhile, a chance collaboration with Scottish songwriter Ross Wilson (Blue Rose Code) led to ‘Remember This Kiss’, and and Steve conceived ‘The Mermaid (The Wedding Song)’ for a yet-to-be-released film featuring a country wedding scene. In complete contrast, ‘Exile’ remains as sadly immediate as it was when he wrote it 30 years ago; his anguished voice soars in the words: “There’s no going home” – and millions of innocent Palestinians and Lebanese will echo the Middle East horrific nightmare, helplessly caught up in a war which they have never made themselves.

‘Red Handed’ is a dark description of someone so obsessively infatuated that they’re on the brink of losing they’re sanity; and the final track is ‘A Song For Wickham’, commissioned for Wickham Parish Council, in praise of the Hampshire village which lies beside the River Meon. Steve wrote it as a tribute, and says in the liner notes: “The voices you hear belong to the spirited audience of the Forest Folk Club in North Boarhunt, whose enthusiasm and warmth made the recording of this song truly special.” It’s a final and very suitable, singable flourish; there’s no doubt that Steve’s songs will grow and grow and last for a very long time.

---

JON BODEN & THE REMNANT KINGS

Parlour Ballads

Hudson Records HUD052CD

https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/product/jon-boden-parlour-ballads

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

What is Parlour Music? In the days of my callow youth when I was just discovering this new and exciting thing called traditional folk, I used to ignore any material which had a writer’s name on it – especially Charles Dibdin, who I mistakenly regarded as composing pseudo opera-folk. How totally wrong I was – but I was not alone. Jon Boden says that Parlour Music is a genre that has been much derided over the centuries. Its heyday was the Victorian era when many middle-class houses possessed pianos and many middle-class sons and daughters could sight-read piano scores to a reasonably high level, musical literacy being highly prized: “Many parlour songs are cloying, nationalistic, pompous and irritating to modern ears, but nestling among the dross there are many shining gems to be found. The early folk song collectors despised all these songs as fakery, usurping the place of the naturally occurring folk songs of the rural working class.”

Parlour Ballads was conceived after the two-year lockdown, when Jon had time enough to really research the material; he armed himself with his beloved upright but tantalisingly slightly-out-of-tune piano, plus occasional fiddle, guitar and 11 songs by nineteenth-century songsmiths. His excellent musicians, The Remnant Kings, comprise Rob Harbron on concertina, harmonium and banjo, Sally Hawkins on fiddle, oboe and cor anglais, M. G. Boulter deputising on pedal steel, lap steel, dobro and guitar, Sam Sweeney on fiddle and percussion and Ben Nicholls on double bass and bass guitar. Paul Sartin, who very unexpectedly passed away in his early fifties, was very influential in his arrangements, and listeners can sense his artful presence; the band seem to soar and float away, peppered by their inspiring and intelligent flourishes. Thrilling choir-like voices add to the full complement, and Matt Boulter has supplied some gorgeous country music sounds, proudly standing up head and shoulders in front of the Nashville scene, and Jon totally fires the songs with his impassioned, cracked rendering.

The only exceptions are the opening ‘On One April Morning’; collectors found that two rural Somerset and Devon singers sang the same song in 1908, with the conclusion being that many parlour ballads entered the oral tradition. However, Jon startles a goodly number by singing the 1959 song ‘Oggie Man’, written by Cyril Tawney, who joined the Navy at 16. His song laments the Cornish pasty seller, vending his welcome tasty bites after the ship docked. Plymouth Docks was heavily bombed in the second World War, and the upshot was that the motorised fast-food vans multiplied; the oggie man was put out of business and vanished.

Jon and The Remnant Kings never let up on the surprises; ‘Bonny Bunch of Roses’ was composed by the broadside writer George Brown and focusses on Napoleon Francois Joseph Charles Bonaparte, son of the emperor Napoleon I and Empress Marie Louise, who lived his short life in exile in Vienna and died of tuberculosis, aged 21. Jon’s piano and the boom box keep up this insistent, hypnotic beat, and it all adds up to a stunning work of art – and Matt’s pedal steel seals the song with a flourish. The poem ‘Clock o’ Clay’ was written by the ‘peasant poet’ and fiddler John Clare around 1820, and the words and melody of ‘Merry Mountain Child’ came from J. Tate and choirmaster Joe Perkin in 1849; Jon says that it’s a popular song in Yorkshire’s Holme Valley, and he learned it from Holmfirth dry-stone waller and respected singer Will Noble.

By complete contrast, ‘Mortal Cares’ came up when theatre director Ben Naylor asked Jon to write a song for his production of The Rover by Restoration playwright Aphra Behn; what transpires is a slinky, jazzy number with sultry, exotic rhythms that inexorably draws me in. ‘Old Brown’s Daughter’ was written by music hall songsmith G. W. Hunt in 1878; it found its way to Norfolk singer Walter Pardon, who sang it to fellow Norfolk singer Peter Bellamy, who gave it to fellow Norfolk singer Damien Barber in the 1980s, who sang it to Jon; that’s the magic of tradition…

Rudyard Kipling wrote the sombre shiverer ‘Danny Deever’ in 1890, and Peter Bellamy composed the famous melody; the stark piano, concertina, fiddle, double bass and pedal steel vividly describe a no-holds-barred military hanging, and producer Andy Bell brilliantly creates the uncertain panic and fear by using mysterious echo-tones. The folk club familiar pot-boiler ‘Rose of Allendale’ was written by London music publisher Charles Jeffries and set to music by the prolific Sydney Nelson in 1836, and Jon’s piano and the band sparks alive the sentimental old song.

The final track was put through the Folk Process mangle; Charles Dibdin (remember him?) wrote ‘The Jolly Young Waterman’ for his ballad opera in 1774, and it emerged through the years as Thames barge skipper, journalist and folksinger Bob Roberts kept it going by singing ‘London Waterman’. It’s a fine song, and Jon and The Remnant Kings lovingly polish and restore it as the upright piano notes slowly die away. Parlour Ballads is a wonderful work of beauty, and that is really saying something.

---

SEPTEMBER 2024

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Finnish fiddler Lassi Logrén is well-known for performing with the legendary world music band Värttinä; however, he has been playing the ancient bowed lyre, the Jouhikko, since he was 12. The Sibelius Academy has released his solo debut album, Jouhikko (Siba Records, LP and digital), a 16-track delight which he has composed and arranged. He displays three different sizes with 10 different tunings, made by master luthier Rauno Nieminen, and the hypnotic sound takes listeners on a unique magic carpet ride. Lassi sports the versatility of this instrument, which has a proud history going back to the middle ages. Marches, desolate airs and gay polkas are expertly handled, from the opening tune ‘Ages Ago’ to the hymn-like final ‘Jag Hör Harpan’. Here is a musician who can make the Jouhikko really sparkle and dance. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Diagnosed with complex PTSD in 2023, Scottish and Moray-based singer-songwriter Oran embarked on a journey of healing and self-exploration, leading her to follow her heart into making music. Her album Rebellious Rebirth (Independent release, ORANRR2024CD) walks a very fine line between folk and compulsive rock beats, with her impressive voice creating striking double-tracked harmonies and her intriguing harp and keyboards weaving dreamlike melodies. Watch her, for she’s bound to have an impact. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Blues musician, slide guitar master and impressive songwriter Martin Harley displays his wonderful Weissenborn instrument plus acoustic, electric, lap steel, resonator and bass in his latest album, Morning Sun (Del Mundo Records, DM010). Nigel Stonier produces and adds guitars, keyboards, ukulele, dulcimer and backing vocals, and a bevy of musicians pile in on upright bass, percussion, pedal steel, piano and harmonica. Ten sizzling tracks are there, including ‘Wolves’, ‘Chop Your Own Wood’, ‘Best is Yet to Come’ and ‘Kites’; this guy has been captivating audiences around the globe for three decades. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

 ► Americana singer and spellbindingly diverse songwriter Mean Mary releases her toe-tapping banjo-driven musical masterpiece of raw energy and storytelling called Woman Creature – Portrait of a Woman, Part 2 (Woodrock Records, WDRK-4306); her brother, Frank James, lends his 12-string guitar and vocalises on many tracks, and Mary’s mother, author Jean James, co-writes with her on six out of ten really infectious songs and tunes. Mainly recorded at Mary’s home studio, this album showcases her exceptional gifts as a multi-instrumentalist, ably performing five and six-string banjos, acoustic and electric guitars, violin and castinets. Stand-out favourites are ‘Revenge’, blood-curdling howls on the title track, a riveting 20-verse spine-chilling ballad called ‘Murder Creek’ and the jaw-dropping jigs on ‘Frozen Strings’. This is her 19^th release, and it’s her absolutely shining best yet. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Songwriter Donald Beaman was at the epicentre of the New York City scene in the early to mid 2000s, prior to his return to Oakland, California; he released four albums as a member of The Double and four more solo. His latest collection, Fog On Mirror Glass (Royal Oakie Records) shows that he’s not the best singer and songsmith in the galaxy, not by a long chalk. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs down

► Watch out for the stunning Irish female unaccompanied quartet Landless; Lily Power, Meabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinead Lynch formed in 2013 in Dublin to perform unaccompanied traditional and newer folk songs in spellbinding four-part harmony. Their 10-track album Lúireach (Glitterbeat Records) is full of dark power, from the opening ‘The Newry Highwayman’ and ‘Blackwaterside’ to ‘My Lagan Love’, ‘The Wounded Hussar’ and the Slovakian closer ‘Ej Husári’. Accompaniment is absolutely minimal, from the repetitive piano to the harmonium’s soft drone. ‘Lúireach Bhríde’, remembering the Irish goddess Brigid, was first recorded in 2018 as part of an RTÉ commission to celebrate the lives of Irish women, and the lyrics were written by poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin.  FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

---

ALASTAIR SAVAGE & ALICE ALLEN

When The Good Ship Lands (Double CD)

Woodland Records, SAV007CD

www.alastairsavage.co.uk

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

There’s definitely something about the absolute thrill of the combined sound of the vibrant tones of the fiddle and the heartwarming low notes of the ‘cello; outstanding highlights including Scotland’s Alasdair Fraser and Californian player Natalie Haas, the West Coast of Canada’s Jocelyn Pettit and American Ellen Gira (who is currently based in Glasgow) and our very own Welsh chamber-folk trio VRï have delighted and amazed audiences – while the very welcome news is Ayrshire-born master musician and composer Alastair Savage and acclaimed cellist Alice Allen have just released this really impressive double album, and it’s a stunning and beautiful cracker.

Where The Good Ship Lands is Alastair’s seventh album, but his first with Alice. This double collection represents the duo’s work together over the past seven years and includes music from their vast range of traditional-based melodies alongside Alastair’s newer compositions, many of which were written during the long period of covid lockdown from 2020 onwards.

Alastair’s fiddle and Alice’s ‘cello have a wonderful habit of magically creating their own special style, which can be absolutely jaw-dropping. Two celebrated jigs open the first disc, and the album’s early tracks focus on the 18^th century golden age of the fiddle, with melodies used by Robert Burns and other classics by Neil Gow, his son Nathaniel and William Marshall. As the story of mass migration to the New World develops, Alastair and Alice explore tunes from Ireland and America; the duo are fascinated by Kentucky-born bluegrass musician and singer Bill Munroe and his life, so the lovely melody ‘Angeline the Baker’ is tacked on after Alastair’s wistful ‘Lend You My Tears’, a dedication to everyone who lost loved ones during the pandemic. The last tune is Alastair’s ‘Railroad’, inspired by a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States and used by enslaved African Americans to escape into free states and from there to Canada; Alice’s powerful interpretation has made it a wonderful showstopper.

The second disc shows Alastair as blossoming into his very inventive own, plus the duo’s reverent doff of their caps to the well-known Scottish dancing master, fiddler and composer James Scott Skinner of Banchory, Aberdeenshire. ‘The Laird of Drumblair’ was William McHardy, one of Skinner’s benefactors, and the duo absolutely attack his strathspey and joyous, dancing reel before triumphantly tackling the gargantuan task of Skinner’s five-tune romp. Alastair composed the first title track about his coastal home town and sea port, Ardrossan, and the cargo ships that sailed over to Ireland and the world. Especially in the early part of the last century, families made the journey too, to the west of Scotland and across the Atlantic to America; sailing across the Atlantic was a sad and natural part of Scotland’s history.

Alastair wrote ‘Distillery March’ and ‘Brewery Reel’ after his parents in law and the Arran Distillery which they visited during their 40^th wedding anniversary, and his dear friends who were married at the West Brewery in Glasgow; ‘When the Sun Shines Over Brodick’ is another of his compositions, inspired by the radiant island town. To conclude, Alastair and Alice are two excellent musicians who have easily overcome their classical and traditional worlds with agility and a considerable amount of panache. When The Good Ship Lands is an absolutely beautiful double album, and I heartly recommend it.

---

ANNE WOOD

When Mountains Meet

Independent release, AWCD2024

www.birnamcd.com/birnam-pr/when-mountains-meet

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

 Renowned violinist Anne Wood was born of a single Scottish mother and a Pakistani father whom she had never met. She grew up as an only child in Scourie, a remote Sutherland coastal village; She trained at the Royal Academy of Music, where she gained a masters degree in Ethnomusicology, and she is now an Ullapool-based professional musician and composer specialising in classical and popular fiddle styles. She also teaches and leads the Highland Chamber Orchestra.

She was in her early twenties when she finally located her father in Pakistan, who had no idea that she existed. She visited Karachi and experienced generous hospitality and cultural riches; she also found that being a musician and an illegitimate woman accorded her little status in Pakistani social circles.

When Mountains Meet is the stunning collection of her autobiographical theatre tour, which was a successful sell-out; indeed, she was recently the lead artist in the show at last year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. Anne, who also plays with The Raincoats, Massive Attack, Michael Marra and Deacon Blue, conceived the album as a conversation between Scottish and South-Asian music; it follows her first journey from the Highlands to the Himalayas, with a dazzling combination of alap, raag, reel and strathspey and the mouth music from Scots, Gaelic and Hindustani musical cultures.

Anne has gathered together a dozen Asian and Scottish musicians for her show: Ankna Arockiam and Niloo-far Khan on vocals, Lahore-based Rakae Jamil on sitar and vocals, Mary Macmaster on Camac electroharp and vocals, Sodhi on tabla and vocals and Rick Wilson on percussion and vocals. When Mountains Meet is a 16-track delight; the musicians pile in for the slinky opener, ‘Giljit Going’, with tabla, percussion, harp and fiddle all grooving together; sitar and fiddle combine gracefully in ‘Pibroch Alap’ and tabla, percussion and fiddle joyously dance together in the gay reel ‘Karachi Scot’. There’s a strong whiff of Gaelic Puirt à beul singing in ‘Eddrachilllis Horo’, with tabla, sitar and harp going great guns; ‘Schist’ is a Scottish-Asian fantasy with a lone female voice naming different types of rock that formed the peaks of Scotland and Pakistan. The show is quite stunning in its sheer originality; indeed, Anne collaborated with Rakae in the whole production.

Anne must be lauded for triumphantly forging two different cultures which are thousands of miles apart; Mary, too, in her wonderful career which has found her playing with Patsy Seddon in the harp duo Sileas, with Kathryn Tickell, with The Poozies, with Sting and other respected musicians. Ankna, Rakae, Niloo, Sodhi and Rick also deserve a doff of the cap for so skilfully blending in the South-Asian and Scottish musical genres. The final parting track is the desolate and oh-so beautiful ‘O Mo Dhuthaich’ – what a finisher, and it quite suitably brings When Mountains Meet to a satisfying conclusion.

---

THE CHARTISTS

Cause for Complaint – Remastered and Expanded

Steam Pie Records SPCD1021S

An old scratched album and a battered cassette tape stuck in the back of a drawer have opened a stunning new window on the Welsh nation’s greatest struggle of all – thanks to AI, or Artificial Intelligence. Forty years ago this year, the Miners’ Strike cut a swathe through the fabric of life in Wales, and a year-long battle against pit closures was vividly documented by South Wales folk-rock band The Chartists and their second album, Cause for Complaint. The album sold out; but The Chartists disbanded, and songs that spoke of the working-class struggle against the vicious arrogance of the Thatcher government fell silent. Until, at the end of 2021, a miracle happened – courtesy of Lord of the Rings film director Peter Jackson.

Jackson helped to pioneer a way to use AI to bring rough old Beatles recordings back to crystal-clear life – teaching AI computers to recognise voices as distinct from instruments and to isolate frustrating scratches and blips. Watching developments were the two remaining performing members of The Chartists, songwriter Wynford Jones and multi-instrumentalist Geoff Cripps, and their original producer Tony Williams.

“We met up at Tony’s studio,” says Geoff. “All we had to go on was a very well-played old copy of Cause for Complaint, way past its best, and a fragile cassette tape of five songs we’d played at a session for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Show.” Wynford adds: “When the session was broadcast, I placed my cassette recorder next to my transistor radio. You can imagine the quality, but we had seen Peter Jackson’s work – so we asked Tony if he could do the impossible.” Tony, constantly fascinated with the newest technology, takes up the story: “It was a mountain to climb – but as I ran through program after program of AI, separating voice from instrument, music from noise, it was like digging a diamond out of the earth and rubbing away the mud to reveal a jewel.”

Even South Wales’ (and Penarth’s) leading songwriter, the inestimable Martyn Joseph, loves Cause for Complaint: “I was just 14 years old when the miners went on strike in 1974, but I can remember with clarity eating by a candle-lit kitchen table and my mother explaining to me why we had to endure power cuts. At the time I didn’t understand it all, but I know that my youthful sympathies were with these men and women as they struggled for a fair wage and a better day. I can’t recall a moment in my lifetime when we needed the siren call of protest through the arts more than now. We need the spirit of these songs, not only to protest, but to remind yourselves who we truly are and that we do not stand alone.”

The original Chartists came together in 1979 when Islwyn MP Neil Kinnock, who organised a series of political rallies marking the commemoration of the 140^th anniversary of the Chartist march on Newport and the inevitable massacre, asked Islwyn Folk Club if they could create events to contribute to those rallies. Indeed, they could and did. Folk Club members formed themselves around Wynford’s songwriting talents and created their own Chartists song programme;

The 1979 Radio Times featured an article and a black-and-white photo showing the earlier group performing upstairs in the club room, based at the Ynysddu Hotel, with customary pint glasses in hand; from left is Geoff, Russell Jones (a fine guitarist from Nelson who played with Thin Wallet with Wynford, Laurence Eddy and Geoff, but left The Chartists after the first few gigs), Wynford, Geri Thomas, the late Remo Lusardi and Laurence. The songs were broadcast on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and the BBC Radio 2 Folk Show – however, the record industry wouldn’t bite. After a number of rejections, they decided that the only way they could release it on record was to do it themselves. Thanks to Remo, Steam Pie Records was born in 1982 and the debut album The Chartists was its first release.

The follow-up album, Cause for Complaint, featured Wynford (lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, mandolin), Geri (lead vocals, harmonica, whistle, bodhràn), Lawrence (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Geoff (keyboards, guitar, mandola, vocals). Guest musicians were the stunning fiddler Brian McNeill of The Battlefield Band, drummer Nick Lewis, cornetist Julian Harris and flautist Nigel Hodge. Brian remembers: “The bond between The Battlefield Band and The Chartists was based on many things – fantastic Welsh hospitality, a mutual appreciation of the crack – the singing sessions at Islwyn Folk Festival have simply never been bettered – and a shared sense of values. When I was paid the huge compliment of being invited to take part in this ground-breaking recording, that deepened immeasurably. I was a songwriter by then, still dealing mostly with my own background – and then I heard two lines on this album: “Some men died on the picket line for home and family / Some men scabbed on the union for a brand new Ford Capri.” Resolved, unsentimental and utterly effective, that couplet is still one of my benchmarks I left that session, determined to be just as direct and courageous in my writing as The Chartists.”

Dr John Geraint filmed The Chartists in his BBC Wales documentary about the newsworthy arrival of the National Eisteddfod to Newport in 1988, and recorded the band performing ‘The Charter’ (one of the five bonus tracks) in front of the now-destroyed Chartists mural in the city centre. He says: “1984 was a frustrating time to be a BBC documentary maker. With miners striking for the future of their industry, Thatcher had turned Britain into something approaching a police state. But, constrained by rules about ‘impartiality’, there seemed to be no way to broadcast the truth. Then the N.U.M. helped organise a community march for jobs through the Gwent Valleys, in the footsteps of the 1839 Chartists. I saw the possibility of combining footage of thousands of marchers, with a soundtrack provided by… The Chartists. Their wonderful concept album telling the whole story of 1839 allowed me to sidestep the broadcasting regs, and yet made clear what the message was.

“The 1987 album – which seems so very relevant today – is a testament to what happened in the bitter aftermath of the Dispute. There’s the lyrical beauty of the instrumental ‘Er Cof Am’ and the angry cry of ‘1984’. And what I hear in this collection is a unified, coherent musical statement. Central to it all, of course, is the title track, with the reminder that one Gwent valley once boasted 15 pits and ‘the last one closed this Easter time’; and its plea to us all to remember our history and to stand up and fight. This is music of significance, music which has stood the test of time.”

Nowadays, Wynford and Geoff still perform the stirring, angry songs of yesteryear. Wynford still writes and takes on the vocals; both he and Geri co-wrote the title track and ‘1984’, and Geri’s gruff, strong voice led both songs. Sadly, Geri is very ill and is no longer able to sing in public; Geoff has ensured that he has a copy of the CD. Laurence was a member of The Chartists and contributed greatly in the band’s days; he played with Wynford and Geoff, but decided to call it a day and stopped performing. To conclude: AI, and the brilliant efforts of Tony, has miraculously resurrected Cause for Complaint and the five bonus tracks; the CD is due to be released in September 6. Through all those years, The Chartists will march again.

---

AUGUST 2024

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Newcastle-based Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra have been gleefully trampling over genre boundaries for over a decade now, chucking folk, rockabilly, blues, country and swing into their musical gumbo, but always sounding mostly just like themselves. Their sixth album, Feet First (Tea Pad Recordings/Sleazy Records TPCD009) involves prolific songwriter Rob and his four musicians – with baritone saxophonist Doc Puky, Axel Praefeke and Jason Starday as special guests – igniting 12 sizzling tracks in just two days in Berlin, including Arnold Lasseur’s ‘Happy Hour’. The Folk Police may bristle and complain, but I like it a helluva lot. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Here’s a very unusual one: Scottish singer-songwriter and sound recordist Jenny Sturgeon creates songs which are bound together by common threads of folklore, nature and the connection people have with the wild. In the summer of 2023 she set off on a 864km walk through Scotland, from Kirk Yetholm, near the border with England, to Cape Wrath Lighthouse, at the far north west of the mainland; she recorded a 33-track sound diary, a digital project named paths.made.walking (Hudson Records), which charts the sound of osprey chicks begging for food and the afternoon call of short-eared owls to mountain bikers speeding downhill along the Southern Upland Way and heavy downpours on the tent canvas. Each track is named for the what3words location where it was recorded; what3words have divided the world into three-metre squares, which are identified by a unique combination of three words, making it easy to share and find exact locations. Try it – it works! FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Singer-songwriter Talise is based in Toronto, Canada, and her six-track EP Western Pine (independently released, no catalogue number) is full of heart and beauty; her delightful banjo playing and disarmingly soulful voice are deeply rooted in storytelling and folklore that just inhabits a song and leaves the listener utterly transfixed. Favourite highlights are ‘Faustman’s Grove’, ‘The Cuckoo’ and ‘Pretty Little Ghost’. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► The five world-class musicians ZRI are based in Vienna, Austria, and the name of the group stands for Zum Roten Igel – in translation, To the Red Hedgehog, the 19^th century Viennese tavern where Brahms and Schubert would go to drink, smoke and make merry. They also heard gypsies playing there, and some of this music found its way into their writing. ZRI play uniquely re-imagined versions, re-scored for a folk ensemble of its time; the personnel are accordionist Jon Banks, clarinettist Ben Harlan, violinist Max Baillie, cellist Matthew Sharp and Iris Pissaride (who plays the santouri, a Greek hammered dulcimer). Café Danube (Naxos World, NXW76168-2) is an amazing 15-track album, highlighting the vivid influences merging European and traditional Eastern cultures – it’s absolutely breathtaking. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

---

SI KAHN & GEORGE MANN

Labor Day

Strictly Country Records SCR-93

www.sikahn.com, www.georgemann.org

Fifty years ago in America, shortly after Labor Day in 1974, Si Kahn and a small group of young musicians gathered in a local DJ’s living room in the old Appalachian mining town of Wise, Virginia. Two days later, buoyed by friendship and a four-track Teac reel-to-reel tape recorder, they sent his first folk album New Wood off to the pressing plant. The impact was immediate and profound: “Si Kahn is the first artist since Woody Guthrie to swoop down on a body of traditional material, transform it utterly and send it home with a shine on”, Ariel Swartley wrote in the Boston Pheonix. “Subtlety, originality and sheer conceptual elegance”, legendary music critic Robert Christgau praised in the Village Voice; and from writer, historian, actor and broadcaster Studs Terkel: “Si Kahn fuses life with song.”

Si celebrated his 80th birthday in April 23, 2024. He’s the only artist in the history of Folk Music International to have received both their specially-created Triple Crown Award and their Spirit of Folk Award. Labor Day came about as he was trying to decide what kind of album to mark his very special birthday and the 50^th anniversary of New Wood. He says: “I finally decided that it should reflect not only my 50 years as a performing and recording musician but my 60 years as a civil rights, union and community organiser.”

George Mann, Si’s friend and fellow member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 1000, wanted to produce an album that would honour him and his songs, and would also give the Labor Movement a collection of new songs about workers, unions and the struggle for a better world. However, he says: “Fortunately or unfortunately, Si has hundreds of unrecorded songs and over a hundred artists have recorded them. It wasn’t easy whittling it down to 21 songs.”

But whittle down they did. In Labor Day, both Si and George spark a selection of Si’s work, from the rousing opener ‘Back When Times Were Hard’ to the closing and proud ‘You Are the ‘U’ in Union’ and ‘People Like You’. A number of other artists willingly contribute Si’s songwriting and rallying cries: Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon sing ‘Jail Can’t Hold My Body Down’, and Billy Bragg hollers out ‘We’re The Ones’ to a lone harsh electric guitar; Michael Johnathon and Odetta record ‘Gone Gonna Rise Again’, Kathy Mattea performs the well-loved ‘Laurence Jones’ and the lovely Peggy Seeger polishes off the popular ‘Aragon Mill’. The folk music duo Magpie interpret ‘Spinning Mills of Home’, while Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer have a load of fun on ‘Truck Driving Woman’. The estimated John McCutcheon has a field day on ‘Go to Work on Monday’, and Tom Chapin and The Chapin Sisters wave imaginary flags in ‘Hold Our Ground Forever’. No doubt about it: Si’s prolific collection has truly inspired and fired the ambitions of the workforce throughout this American land.

Si also holds the rare crown of many artists tributing his songs – including Oswestry-born musician, songwriter and teacher Phoebe Rees, who was the first to give him an 80^th birthday present with her album Bring In The Light: Si Kahn’s Songs of Courage and Resistance. May his amazing work and his many fiery verses live for evermore.

---

JULY2024

---

TEYRNGED I LLEWELYN ALAW / A TRIBUTE TO LLEWELYN ALAW

An appreciation by Mick Tems

The gigantic National Eisteddfod kicks off in the centre of Ynysangharad Park, Pontypridd, in Saturday, August 3 and will end on Saturday, August 10 – and a magnificent ring-pull 82-page book, containing the celebrated 19^th-century harper, composer and collector Llewelyn Alaw’s 60-plus folk tunes and a fascinating history of the Trecynon Unitarian chapel where he worshipped and was buried in its graveyard, has been published and will go on sale at the Maes for the amazing price of £15.

Thomas Dafydd Llewelyn, who took the bardic name Llewelyn Alaw, was responsible for more than 60-odd jigs, hornpipes, waltzes, airs and marches; many folk musicians will be certain to buy the book, which clearly shows strong links between the chapel and the current Eisteddfod, which is now based in the heart of the host county borough council, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

The triple harper Robin Huw Bowen first highlighted Llewelyn Alaw’s work, and the Welsh duo Calennig recorded a smattering of his polkas, reels and a cartwheeling 112-bar hornpipe named ‘Y Bregeth’ (The Sermon). However, the fascinating history of the development in South Wales of a fledgling nonconformist society provided a mighty anchor with the Eisteddfod we know today.

The first congregation was established in the 18^th century by the Old Dissenters, nonconformists who pursued radical causes such as the abolition of the slave trade, electoral reform, Chartism, workers’ rights, trade unionism, the provision of education and womens’ emancipation. The first chapel was constructed in a field on belonging to Gadlys Uchaf farm, to the north near Aberdare; afterwards, they built the mother church, Hen Dŷ Cwrdd (The Old Meeting House) in what is now Trecynon and had a uniquely rich relationship with the origin of the Gorsedd of Bards and the development of the modern Eisteddfod.

Llewelyn Alaw was already a staunch worshipper in Hen Dŷ Cwrdd and was buried in its graveyard. In earlier years, the famous folk forger Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) was a regular visitor; Tomos Glyn Cothi (jailed for two years at Carmarthen for allegedly singing a song in support of the French Revolution) and John Jones, a leading Chartist, were its ministers from 1811-1833 and 1833-1862 respectively. Another significant minister was Edward Evan, who was really close to Iolo Morganwg; Iolo used his religious and literary good name to invent and create the supposedly ancient Druidic continuity of the Gorsedd of Bards, which grew out of the Eisteddfod. In fact, Iolo created the modern Eisteddfod out of his own imagination.

The book, named Teyrnged i Llewelyn Alaw / A Tribute to Llewelyn Alaw, is written in Welsh and English and is published by Addoldai Cymru, the Welsh chapels trust which has saved and restored 11 redundant religious buildings. Led by manager Christine Moore, the trust was granted £249,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the restoration of Hen Tŷ Cwrdd, who had lain empty for 15 years and had deteriorated significantly; the successful application was titled ‘An Eisteddfod Tradition’.

The tribute to Llewelyn Alaw contains many full-colour illustrations – but the national archives could provide only one photograph of the harper, which is emblazoned on the book. Many tunes and melodies are in there, starting from the gay jigs ‘Ffarwel Mari’ and ‘The Wheat Sheaf’, the waltzes ‘Abercynffig’, ‘Llwyn Onn’ and ‘Trefforest Waltz’, the hornpipes ‘Pibddawns Bob Buckles’ and ‘Smith Hornpipe’, to ‘Aberdar Polkas’, ‘Glan Meddewdod Mwyn’ (translated as ‘Good Humoured and Fairly Tipsy’) and the James James composition ‘Glan Rhondda’, which became the National Anthem of Wales.

A dozen contributors are responsible for bringing out this book; Christine Moore was the instigator, and the editors are Rob Bradshaw and Jeff Jones. Rob, who successfully decoded Llewelyn Alaw’s manuscripts, has a life-long interest in folk music and is a Llantrisant Folk Club committee member. He started Llantwit Major Tune Club with Steph Kempley, and they have been running it successfully for 12 years. Jeff has been a musician for various Welsh dance groups for the past 40 years and currently plays the melodeon for Penybont Dancers and Cardiff-based Cobblers Awl Dancers. He runs the Cefn Cribwr Tune Club and has been researching the Llewelyn Alaw manuscripts since 2015. David Leslie Davies, who wrote and researched the tribute, has been active with the Cynon Valley History Society as author, editor and chairman for many years; freelance artist and maker Anne Gibbs conducted workshops with the pupils of Ysgol Gyfun Rhydywaun about Hen Dŷ Cwrdd and its links with the Eisteddfod, and award-winning artist Lowri Davies provided the line drawings and water colour sketches for the book. In addition, Llantrisant and Cefn Cribwr Tune Clubs participated in the Llewelyn Alaw workshops.

Teyrnged i Llewelyn Alaw / A Tribute to Llewelyn Alaw, is on sale for £15 at the Addoldai Cymru stall in the Eisteddfod; when the Eisteddfod finishes, you can buy the book for an extra charge of £3.50 (postage and packing.) The address is: Addoldai Cymru, Salem Chapel, Picton Street, Nantyffyllon, Maesteg CF34 0HH.

---

PETE MORTON

Fair Freedom

Self released, no catalogue number

www.petemorton.com

No doubt about it – guitarist Pete Morton grabs you by the lugholes and commands you to listen. He’s absolutely spellbinding and magically magnetic; apart from that, he’s got a truckful of charisma, a bulging sack of composed songs and catchy choruses which stubbornly implant in the audience’s brains, and a powerful, persuasive voice to boot. I saw him live in the flesh at Llantrisant Folk Club and I was rather hooked; and at the end of the evening, he gave me his brand-new album to see what I thought.

Pete is a showman, referring to himself as “an old-time troubadour” – a name borrowed from the French language, who in turn coined it from the Occitan lands. In those ancient days, a troubadour or a wandering minstrel was classed in the pecking order as equal to a knight, and that epithet seems certain to capture him well. Pete has surrounded himself with a bevy of well-known musicians, including Matt Quinn on mandolin and vocals, Sarah Matthews on fiddle, viola and vocals and George Sansome (of Granny’s Attic) on guitar; the final fine-up comprises Justin Twigg on bass, Mark Woolley on percussion and low whistle and Paul Yarrow on keyboards. In addition, Paul has recorded, mixed and mastered the ten tracks at the Maude Music studio in Leek, Staffordshire; but when all fuss has died down, Pete strikes out on his own and soundly delivers many an appealing upbeat song.

Fair Freedom is a really impressive album, exploding with the opening celebratory chorus belter ‘Rivers of the Isle’; Pete, accompanied by the singing kids of St Mary’s Catholic Academy Leek Choir, names more than a hundred of Britain’s streams, tributaries and water courses. I think that I counted a total of 11 Welsh rivers, including the Dee, Dyfi, Wye, the Teifi and the Taf, and there’s much more English and Scottish life-giving waterways to come: “The rivers outlive us, we come and we go / The rivers outlive us, the rivers just flow…”  (Unfortunately, the outgoing government’s 14-year residency consisted of uncaring greed, laissez-faire attitudes and incompetent chaos, which engendered so much pollution; if you drank from the Thames or even fell into it, you would become dangerously ill or perhaps die.)

The second song, ‘You’re the One I Care About the Most’, has the audience guessing about which rhyming words are appropriate: ‘Ghost’, ‘Roast’, ‘Toast’ is all right! Pete rings the changes in the third pretty jazz-like love number, ‘The Genuine You’, and invokes the knack of a songwriter’s poetry. However, I’m not sure about the meaning of ‘Sharing the Land’ and the genocide of the Palestinians; at the time of writing, Israeli planes have killed more than 90 innocent Gaza residents in a supposedly ‘safe’ zone in their determination to get a key Hamas leader. Does he condemn Netanyahu’s policies or praise them?

‘Birdsong and Green’ is a clever sing-it-again advert about an imaginary Natural World enterprise that is a fresh alternative and answer to all the greedy mega-corporations: “Come and do your shopping at Birdsong and Green! / Everything is priceless at Birdsong and Green! / No ID required at Birdsong and Green! / They’re open every hour at Birdsong and Green!” It’s clear that Pete wears his heart on his ultra-green sleeve; ‘The Lives We Lead’ is a dark song filled with hope, while ‘Newton’s Parakeet’ is a warning about many species that have become extinct, but the human race had better watch out: “With all life in its flow / You need us, don’t you know / Go back long ago / Before you shot the Buffalo.” ‘The Ghost of a Sailor’ is an artful eight-minute rap about the potted history of the British populace, interspersing with traditional songs and one by Sidney Carter. The final love song, ‘Forevermore’, is pretty perfect: “Let’s find a place beyond the hill / Built by love and made of will / Though through the mist we wandered still / On the road to Forevermore.”

Pete has will be celebrating his 60^th birthday in July; he has travelled many miles to sing his wonderful songs, and over his 40-year career he has recorded more than a score of albums. According to the sadly-missed fRoots Magazine, font of all knowledge, he “is amongst the best that the British roots music scene has produced in living memory” – and so say all of us. Morton is unique.

---

JUNE 2024

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Fiddler Eilidh Steel and multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Mark Neal are coming to Llantrisant Folk Club on August 28 this year. Mark has played in a number of Scottish traditional music bands, but this Helensburgh-based physics and musical acoustics graduate decided to go it alone on his solo debut album, Cool Waters (Eh Records EHCD08). All ten songs were written, produced, recorded and mixed by himself, including all instruments and vocals; the set varies between ear-catching and very melodic acoustic food-for-thought and straight electric rock. Definitely an artist to watch… FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Revered singer/songwriter Linda Thompson’s latest project, the aptly-named Proxy Music (Storysound Records) features artists handpicked by Linda and her son, album co-producer Teddy Thompson, to sing her tunes by ‘proxy.’ Linda, who Rolling Stone magazine hailed as having “one of rock and roll’s finest voices,” has limited singing capabilities now due to a rare vocal condition, spasmodic dysphonia. Proxy Music brilliantly showcases her impressive songwriting skills through sparkling performances from Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Eliza Carthy, The Proclaimers, The Unthanks, John Grant, Dori Freeman, Ren Havieu and many of talented family members, including her children Teddy and Kami and her ex-husband Richard Thompson. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Old-time string trio Sweet Joe Pye were originally founded in Den Haag, the Netherlands, but now are based in the French capital of Paris and Morganstown, West Virginia; the personnel is lovely singer and songwriter Annick Odom (fiddle, guitar), Henri Colombat (guitar, mandolin) and Lucas Henri (banjo, guitar, bass). Their EP Rise Early (independent release, no catalogue number) comprises ‘Blote Voeten & Blue Crab’, Annick’s Dutch song and Henri’s extremely hummable tune; the beautiful ‘Moonwalk’, about a student of Annick’s who was killed in a drive-by shooting; and the pretty ‘Rise Early & Sweet Joe Pye’, satisfying pieces that nail down Appalachian down-home music just perfectly. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Irish tenor banjo virtuoso Elaine Reilly comes from County Longford and is much sought after as a performer and tutor; her debut album Epiphany – Irish Traditional Music on the Tenor Banjo (Bandcamp or 17 Euro compact disc) contains 14 uplifting and inspiring reels, jigs, hornpipes barndances and a set dance, from the opening ‘Leddy from Cavan / Tim Fitzpatricks’ through ‘The Kiss Behind the Door / Bonnie Annie’ to the closing set ‘The Bunch of Keys / Hughie’s Cap’. She is ably accompanied by pianist Brian McGrath, bouzouki player Brian Mooney and accordionist/melodeonist Daithí Gormley for a completely joyous set; the whole thing was recorded, mixed and mastered by Tommy Doherty of Currinara Studios in Foxford, County Mayo. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

---

LAURA JANE WILKIE

Vent

Hudson Records HUD049CD

www.hudsonrecords.co.uk/

 This is a truly beautiful album. Laura Jane Wilkie hails from the royal burgh and parish of Tain in the county of Ross, Scottish Highlands; she possesses a striking fiddle style which has its roots in the Highland fiddle traditions but is influenced by a vast range of music from all genres. Vent is centred on women’s waulking songs, or work songs; not being a Gaelic speaker, Laura studied these to adapt them for the fiddle, immersing herself in the Scottish archives as well as having them passed on from friend, tradition bearer and one-woman ceilidh, Rona Lightfoot. Indeed, Laura was inspired by Rona’s late mother, the wonderful Maggie MacDonald: “She encouraged everyone to engage and take joy, meaning and a sense of ‘belonging’ from the Gaelic traditions, particularly as I got older and started becoming involved with teaching traditional music,” she says. “She was wonderfully generous and kind. I had so much fun working with her, as did so many throughout her life.”

Laura’s album includes the respected Ian Carr on guitars and harmonium, Sarah Hayes on keyboards, flutes and vocals, Joe Rattray on bass, Rachel Sermanni on vocals, Hannah Read on electric guitar and Alice Allen on cello; Laura and Sarah produced the whole of the nine tracks, which was recorded by Stuart Hamilton at Castlesound Studios in Pencaitland, East Lothian, and mixed by Andy Bell at Hudson Studios, Sheffield.

Vent is entirely instrumental; Ian and Laura trade and juggle beautiful and delightful vignettes, and all the musicians contribute their inestimable talents – a kiss of piano, a soupςon of keyboards, a hint of vocal samples from Pippa Blundell, Hannah Findlay, Gillian Fleetwood, Rona Lightfoot and Imogen MacLeod. The songs possess their hypnotic, proud Gaelic language, and Laura names her composed title tracks plucked from the Gaelic tradition: ‘I Am Sad in the Braes of the Glen’, ‘Lift Up My Love’, ‘I’m Not Alone’ and ‘Mermaid’. In ‘A Man Ran Off’, both guitar and fiddle float and dance with each other, very reminiscent of classical styles, until the climax comes and all the instruments pile in so sweetly and strongly together; in ‘Albatross’, mysterious and otherworldly voices draws the listener to the waulking tradition; and in ‘The Sailor Has Good Chat’, Laura reverently doffs her cap to the rich Highland culture.

The final track is ‘Try’, which Laura says is “not a Gaidhlig song at all – a tune that I wrote to vent my worries, fears and frustrations about with outdated attitudes and damaging patriarchal ideas about ‘strength’ and ‘dignity’, particularly surrounding ill-health.” It’s a gorgeous fiddle melody, with her producing sparkling showers of notes and Ian expertly empathising on guitar; what a tremendous flourish to finish the album.

I’ve been playing Vent time and time again, and I never will tire of it – what a glittering gem.

---

M G BOULTER

Days of Shaking

Hudson Records HUD050CD

www.hudsonrecords.co.uk/

This is just a lovely set. M G Boulter is a musician and poet living on the Thames coast in Essex, in the city of Southend-on-Sea; the opening title song in his fourth album hints strongly at the paranormal and revelatory warnings of the future: “It hovered above my house, I was maybe twelve, there were triangles of red and green…maybe it was a trick of the night, unknown movement in the atmosphere; maybe it was a hope for something bigger than ourselves.” Then the chorus: “These are the days of shaking / where pillars will fall to the ocean / we’ll lie in the long grass in the garden / in speak in dead tongues we are blind to ourselves.” Or the second verse: “Eyes open in a tragedy, bow your head boy for the comet is coming.”

In fact, M G has been around the block for quite a bit. He played in many bands in Southend’s burgeoning pub rock scene, where local hopefuls who made it big included Procol Harum, Dr Feelgood, The Kursaal Flyers and Eddie and the Hotrods. He was lead singer and guitarist with the country rock band The Lucky Strikes, who Q Magazine once likened to “The Waterboys on trucker pills”. The Lucky Strikes made five albums, and M G formed a close working relationship with New York native and songwriter Simone Felice, touring the UK and the US. M G recorded his debut album, The Water or the Wave, in 2013; he worked on long term projects with Scottish folk artists Blue Rose Code and Samantha Whates, as well as BBC Folk Award winner Emily Portman as part of her Coracle Band. In 2016 he was one of eight artists picked to join the Estuary Songwriting Project, which sought to create a show’s worth of material inspired by the Thames Estuary; and in that year he released his second solo offering, With Wolves the Lamb Will Lie, produced by Andy Bell. The success of the album led him to sign with Hudson Records, and the EP Blood Moon, the themed project Clifftown and the EP A Shadow Falls Over New Brighton swiftly followed. Now M G is a regular member of Jon Boden’s Remnant Kings, and he has worked with Shetland artist Jenny Sturgeon.

Days of Shaking is just exquisite; M G adds guitars, pedal and lap steel guitar and percussion, and his dreamy, calm high-tenor voice is enhanced by delicate chamber-folk sounds. The musicians are cellist and percussionist Harriet Bradshaw, M G’s collaborators Lucy Farrell (vocals, saw and percussion) and Neil McSweeney (guitars, bass and vocals), Tom Lentall (piano) and Helen Bell (violin, viola). Jenny Sturgeon and M G co-wrote ‘Talk to Me of Water’, and she applies harmony vocals and keyboards on this song. His lyrics and thoughts reveal themselves into freeform, tumbling verses. The second track is titled ‘Quiet’: “I’m an early dawn riser / burnt sugar in my veins / orange streetlights fizzing / Silvia, goddess of the grove / through orchards devils creep / in this light I can see them coming.”

M G nails his colours to the mast and bares his soul; in ‘Silver Birches’, he sings: “I don’t watch the news, I sleep sometimes / at night I go out walking / when all the houses are quiet.” In the final track, ‘Blonde Pine’, he muses on death, funerals and the grim reaper: “We carry our grandparents’ names / and stutter though a darkness / my neighbour used to water / her garden azaleas / then she passed and now / no-one cares to remember.” And the great question: “Will these memories die when I am gone? / Skulls with perfect teeth will chatter to no-one.” All the time, he draws the listener in with his hypnotic, otherworldly philosophy and sincere beliefs.

Days of Shaking was recorded, mixed and produced by Andy between March and November, 2023, in the Red Kite Studio in the village of Llanwrda, Carmarthenshire, in Hudson Studios, Sheffield and in Jenny’s home on the Shetland Isles. As I said: what a lovely set.

---

RACHEL NEWTON

Sealladh

Hudson Records HUD048CD

www.hudsonrecords.co.uk/

Sealladh, pronounced shall-ugh, is a Gaelic noun which is translated as sight, spectacle or view; other meanings are the compass of vision and the extent to which one can see, a vision, dream or supernatural sight. This lovely new album from singer, harper and composer Rachel Newton – member of The Furrow Collective, The Shee and The Emily Portman Trio – began as a commission for the National Galleries of Scotland, celebrating over 80 years of live music programming at their gallery in The Mound, Edinburgh. The commission also coincided with the opening of the new Scottish Galleries, home to the vast collection of artworks by Scottish painters, which inspired Rachel’s music. Each of the 13 tracks is based on a particular painting and draws on the mythology, language, history, culture and landscapes that originally set the scene for these artworks. A deluxe full-colour booklet, featuring all of the paintings, accompanies Rachel’s album – and as well as the compact disc, it’s available in purple or black vinyl.

Sealladh contains sound recordings from Grant Anderson, Alice Allen’s cello plus Rachel’s voice, harp, piano and synth, with expert production from Hudson Records wizard Andy Bell; the main artist was Gaelic speaker William McTaggart, born in Kintyre in 1835, whose Scottish seascapes formed many of the works on Rachel’s album. Her compositions, such as ‘Machrihanish Bay’ and ‘Quiet Sunset, Machrihanish’ are further developed by her journeys to the places in Kintyre, where McTaggart painted some his most famous works. Grant joined Rachel on these visits and recorded the sound of waves, birdsong and the harp singing in the wind to catch the serenity of McTaggart’s brushstrokes.

Another major influence for the album was Phoebe Anna Traquair; she was born in Dublin in 1852 and moved to Edinburgh, while she became one of the first women artists to achieve mainstream recognition in Scotland. Fired by the four tapestries which make up The Progress of the Soul – which outline the soul’s journey from birth through the trials of life to ultimate salvation – Rachel conjures stark and stunning music on Traquair’s bold, arresting images of ‘Entrance’, ‘Despair’, ‘Stress’ and ‘Victory’ into improvisational harp pieces which bind Sealladh together.

The third artist featured on the album is John Duncan, born in Dundee in 1866 and one of the leading lights of the Celtic Revival; Rachel has delved into Celtic mythology and merged traditional Gaelic songs with newly-made vignettes of new music. She transports the listeners to places near and far with her serene and dreamy musicality; the name of the painting and the work is ‘Angus Og, God of Love and Courtesy, Putting a Spell of Summer Calm on the Sea’ – which surely must be a record for the longest title that ever there was.

Thanks to the National Galleries of Scotland, we can view the paintings and revel in Rachel’s visionary originality – and to Andy’s Hudson Records for bringing the project together.

---

NARAGONIA & GUESTS

Live – 20^th Anniversary Concert

Trad Records TRAD033

www.naragonia.com

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

Naragonia are the inspirational and daring Belgian diatonic accordionists Pascale Rubens and Toon Van Mierlo; they have played together since 2003, putting down nine beautiful albums in their wake. Their twentieth anniversary could not pass without a big celebration, and it became an unforgettable feast. The dazzling concert was at the lovely Shouwburg Leuven theatre in December 16, 2023, where 13 musician friends celebrated in fabulous music, playing late into the night – including the inestimable Andy Cutting, French hurdy-gurdy maestro Gilles Chabenat and Maarten Decombel, guitarist/mandolinist member of sizzling combinations including MandolinMan, Snaarmaarwaar and the Naragonia Quartet. Family members included Veronique Rubens on the piano, Charlotte Van Mierlo on vocals and Mathijs Van Mierlo on trumpet; the theatre was sold out in less than a week and was filled to the brim with fans from all over Europe. What a party!

As well as the diatonic accordions, Pascale plays elegant violin and vocalises, and Toon blows thrilling bagpipes and soprano saxophone. Both individually compose glittering gems of jaw-dropping music that blossom and grow from the beating heart of traditional culture – and Live just explodes with the opening ‘Naya / Castor’, a proud and joyous branle that Toon has written so exquisitely; all musicians – including Gilles, Andy, Maarten, Veronique, soprano saxophonist Philippe Laloy, double bassist Vincent Noiret and percussionists Jo Zanders and Simon Leleux – absolutely jell and swing together as if their lives depended on it. What a marvelous tight band, and what a stunning experience.

Swooping and diving diatonic accordions dominate Pascale’s works ‘Mira’ and ‘Calimero’, and Charlotte adds vocals in ‘Is het Nog Ver’ (Is it Still Far). One of my happiest and most memorable weekends was Calennig being invited to the Gooik international folk festival, west of Brussels, and Toon salutes and doffs his virtual cap with his composition ‘Gooik’; and Gilles fires up his hurdy-gurdy with Toon’s red-hot melody ‘Hellebore / Too Late to Sleep’. Guy Swinnen joins Pascale in her serene song ‘We Map the Stars’, from a lyric by Reineke Van Hooreweghe; it’s just like a wonderful acoustic orchestra with its magical swelling sounds, ebbing and flowing like waves on a sandy beach – and Toon has the last flourish with his entrancing and hypnotic dance tune ‘Gij Met Mij’ (You with Me), the uproarious applause echoing loud and long.

This album captures the joyous and incredibly charged atmosphere of the celebration brilliantly. Hearty congratulations to Pascale and Toon; may you conjure heart-stopping and beautiful music for ever and always.

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Stunning fiddler and Irish singer Sinéad McKenna comes from the village of Augher in Co. Tyrone and was born to a family steeped in Irish traditional music. Her limited edition album, Faoi L​á​n Ceoil (self-released, no catalogue number) soundly points to her North Monaghan roots and draws its inspiration from her two grand-uncles, Tommy Peoples and Ed Davey; twelve jaw-dropping tracks sizzle and bubble their raw and joyous way, from the opening ‘McIllhattons Retreat / House of Hamill / Music in the Glen’, through the pretty song ‘Fuigfidh Mise an Baile Seo’ to the final belter ‘The Bunch of Green Rushes / Declan Folan’s’. This is solid gold stuff which I’ve had the greatest pleasure to listen to and savour. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► A very long EP or a very short CD? Exciting fiddle virtuoso and composer Neil Ewart combines with Ali MacQuarrie’s intricate guitar work, bass lines and beats in the amazing Inverness duo Church Street Shuffle; in the seven-track album, The Five Day Weekend (CCS001, independent release), they join forces with seasoned recording engineer and producer Barry Reid, resulting in a meticulously crafted sound that delights audiences both live and on CD. Neil demonstrates superbly the rich heritage of Scotland’s west coast, mixed with infectious grooves – I like it a helluva lot. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Harpist and composer Tasha Smith Godinez hails from San Diego, California and releases her new album A New Day (Ennanga Records, ENN20004); she’s joined by master musicians Domenico Hueso on viola and bass, percussionist Christopher Garcia and jazzy soaring vocals from Leonard Patton for 50 minutes of soulful melodies and heady creative sounds. Nine of her latest of her latest spacey compositions are included, from the opening ‘Passion Flower’ and ‘When the Word Began His Work’ to ‘Lament (for a world right-side up)’; well, it’s sort of folk, Jim, but not as we know it… FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Singer-songwriter and impressive guitarist Jon Budworth was born in Leigh, Greater Manchester, but he moved over the border and became an honorary Yorkshireman. His album, In Sight of Home (Flying Folkie Recording Company, FF002CD) deals with the HMY Iolaire disaster; an overcrowded Admiralty yacht sank in exceptionally bad weather conditions at the entrance to Stornoway harbour on January 1, 1919 with the loss of 201 Lewis men out of the 283 on board, costing the Isle of Lewis almost the whole of its young male population. The talented Edwina Hayes harmonises with Jon; Unfortunately, his voice is completely masked by his guitar, drums and echoey pop-production, and his words and meaning are totally lost. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs down

---

TANGLEJACK

The Ragged Edge

Self-released album

No catalogue number

Tanglejack are acoustic guitarists and contemporary songwriters John-Paul Davies and Duncan Leigh, who are based in the Swansea Valley – Pontardawe and Glanaman, to be precise. Both are in their mid-forties now, but they met up as teenagers, playing in the Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen brass band with the miners who worked in the now-closed Abernant Colliery. The Ragged Edge is their debut album, which is taken from the title song; Tim Hamill, recording engineer and owner of Sonic One Studios in the village of Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, produced the 11 self-composed tracks.

John-Paul and Duncan’s fresh and gritty attitude is extremely appealing. The opening track consists of proud and bold a capella harmonies in the song ‘In the Light of the Setting Sun’, with dire warnings about climate change; slide guitar cuts through the hummable melody. The valleys and the whole of Wales has been battered and bruised by 14 years of the Westminster Government’s arrogant, uncaring and downright shameful austerity, and Tanglejack unleash their eloquent venom on the third track, ‘You’ve Never Had It So Good’: “Do as we say, not as we do;” or: “You’ve never had it so good, just don’t be sick or ill…” The only thing that starts rocketing in this brave new world is wild parties in Number 10, price hikes and the proliferation of food banks and greedy millionaires.

Above all, it’s Tanglejack’s voices – and messages – which ring loud and clear. ‘The Garden of Your Heart’ is pleasingly poppy, ‘Wild Roses’ and ‘Brockwell’ are absolutely gorgeous and ‘Draw Another Breath’ is a rallying cry for the valleys soul and spirit. The dizzy final track, ‘(This Is Not) The End’, marks the maturing in their writing; John-Paul’s and Duncan’s guitars help considerably, creating urgency and zing. This is a really promising first album; I’ll look forward to the next one.

---

MAY 2024

---

SAM LEE

Songdreaming

Cooking Vinyl COOKCD915

www.samleesong.co.uk/

The worldwide traditional folk movement, far from being a static and dying breed which antiquarians would rather preserve in formaldehyde and dump it in a glass cage, is remarkably and proudly alive and kicking – so says Sam Lee, folk pioneer, song finder and shaper whose plaudits include the Radio 2 Folk Awards, Songlines Magazine’s Artist of the Year award and shortlisting for the Mercury Prize. His fourth album is a continuation of Sam’s work with producer Bernard Butler, who works with pop artists like Suede and Duffy; it’s a dazzling world of instrumentation including the core players, long-term collaborator and pianist James Keay, the producer himself on electric guitar, double bassist Misha Mullov-Abado, percussionist Josh Green and Joseph O’Keefe on violin. The Arabic Qanun, Scottish smallpipes, the Swedish Nyckelharpa, French horn and trombone also crop up in the deep, dark well of pulsing organic energy; and Trans Voices, the London-based transgender quintet, contribute Songdreaming by singing on four tracks.

Sam is well known as a prominent climate activist and a complete nature lover; he’s a founding member of Music Declares Emergency and has been closely involved with Brian Eno’s Earthpercent charity. Indeed, the album states that a percentage of proceeds will be donated to Earthpercent. Sam completely rewrites and turns around all nine traditional songs, starting with the opening ‘Bushes and Briars’; what is supposed to be a familiar and well-loved folk chestnut has a dazzling fusion for its endpiece, an unnerving maelstrom with Bernard’s searing electric guitar biting deep and building up to a wall of sound. It’s extremely beautiful and quite unsettling, and Sam somersaults the lyric: “Sometimes I’m uneasy / And troubled in my mind / Sometimes I think we’ve gone too far / To turn it round in time / Sometimes I’m plagued / By all I should and must / And what we’ll leave behind.”

‘Meeting is a Pleasant Place’ is an old Devon Gypsy folk song, but Sam enhances it by his retouching; and he learned the third track, the 1745 lament ‘McCrimmon’, from his teacher and Scottish traveller Stanley Robertson, who described it as one of his “thoosand calorie ballads”. The respected Gypsy singer May Bradley was born in Chepstow in the ancient county of Gwent, and she settled in Herefordshire; Sam adapted her apocryphal and mysterious song ‘Leaves of Life’, deleting seven virgins and replacing seven children. ‘Green Mossy Banks’ is almost a new song; he learned ‘Black Dog and Sheep Crook’ from Dorsetshire Romany Gypsy Queen Caroline Hughes and ‘Sweet Girl McRee’ from Irish traveller Nan Connors. Incidentally, ‘Sweet Girl McCree’ and ‘McCrimmon’ featured in the 2023 film The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton.

Above all, it’s the ancient songs that shine through, and Sam polishes up the verses and the startling arrangements. Songdreaming marks a further stamp of Sam as a revolutionary artist at the height of his creative powers.

---

MOLLY DONNERY & THE CIDERHOUSE REBELLION

A Little Bit Slanted

Under The Eaves UTE009

THE CIDERHOUSE REBELLION

And Even the Sheep Shall Dance

Under The Eaves UTE010

JESSIE SUMMERHAYES & THE CIDERHOUSE REBELLION

Tales of Colonsay (double CD)

Under The Eaves UTE011

www.theciderhouserebellion.com/

Outstanding fiddler Adam Summerhayes and mesmerising accordionist Murray Grainger are very well known and completely respected for their jaw-dropping folk-improv collaborations and their considerable recording output; and the postman has just delivered a startling tryptych of The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s collaborations with entrancing Irish singer Molly Donnery, a double album with Adam’s daughter, Jessie Summerhayes, and a nine-track set, created extemporaneously without any thought of planning, just genuine spontaneity.

Why The Ciderhouse Rebellion? The story goes that Adam and Murray baulked at all the trendy full-on craft ale products which are being thrust to the thirsty public, and decided to simply drink cider instead. All three albums are very different; they give free rein to Molly’s and Jessie’s talents, but it’s the same delicious free-and-easy attitude and fresh inspiration that filters throughout and casts a bright sunshiny spell on the listening crowd.

With A Little Bit Slanted, it’s Molly’s gorgeous voice entwined with Adam’s shivering pyrotechnics and Murray’s accordion mastery; all three are musicians with Anglo-Irish quartet The Haar, who are quickly gaining recognition and an admiring reputation. The band was founded in 2019 when Adam and Murray found themselves totally transfixed by this red-haired girl’s singing in a traditional session at Craiceann Bodhrán Festival in Inis Oírr, the most easterly of the Irish Aran Islands; and Molly quickly agreed to join the ranks. The Haar recorded a promising 2022 debut album, When Old Ghosts Meet; and sure enough, Molly comes up shining brilliantly on the latest offering while Adam and Murray rise to the occasion. The result is breathtaking and ambitious. From the wonderful and wild tones of the opening track ‘My Buachaillín Donn / My Brown-haired Boy’, the soulful fiddle and accordion heralding ‘Where the Mulcair River Flows’, through the exhilarating shower of notes in ‘The Cabin With Roses Round the Door’ to the closing finale ‘The Town of Ballybay’, this is a really lovely album.

For the first time, Adam and Murray employ a stomp box in And Even The Sheep Shall Dance, which Adam confesses is an entirely made-up biblical quote: “As the apocalypse comes and the end times are upon us, cider should be drunk and even the sheep shall dance.” Recorded in 24 hours in the Rosedale Studio in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, it’s their tongue-in-cheek answer to the current state of the world – the post-covid aftermath, global political turmoil, austerity, Putin, climate change. Murray elucidates: “We’re confirming for ourselves in that there’s a choice in how we respond to the doom and gloom around us.” The stomp box changed The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s method of performing and added a new, integral energy: “It’s essentially pogo-folk music, but somehow we transformed our malaise into something worth dancing to.”

And Even The Sheep Shall Dance includes virtual tsunamis of devastatingly beautiful playing, matched only by the silliness of the titles. The first track is called ‘As We Party Oblivious’, with accordion spelling out the morse code; suddenly the fiddle bursts upon the scene with a glittering array of notes. Adam and Murray possess what must be termed as an uncanny solid-gold sixth sense when it comes to each track being forged-in-the-moment; Adam rightly earns his nickname as “the Paganini of the violin”, and he magically summons up a plethora of a bright onslaught of heady arpeggios and semi-quavers; Murray is always there, and his empathetic accompaniment is seamless and watertight.

The Ciderhouse Rebellion roll through many tunes, the names of which are ‘And We Shall Float Like Sheep’, ‘Until the Rabbit Warriors Dance’, ‘And the Last Pineapple Goes’ and ‘White Islands Sink’. ‘To Storm the Cucumber Castle’ can only be described as simply jaw-dropping, with Adam firing off a blazing volley of sounds and Murray stoking up the intense heat; it’s a mighty diamond of a collection.

Adam and Murray have been inspired by the landscapes of their surroundings in the past, and the double album Tales of Colonsay is their fourth collaboration with Adam’s daughter, Jessie. She’s an award-winning and spoken-word artist, and the album is 11 poems she wrote for her father’s birthday; Jessie has visited Colonsay many times before, but this one was a 10-day journey drawn from the remote Inner Hebridean island, tracking her movements from Oban on the Argyll and Bute mainland, across the sea and then along the pristine Atlantic shoreline of Colonsay. There’s an intense reciprocity between the trio, even though they recorded the album in three separate rooms, with Jessie reciting her verses in one room and Adam and Murray weaving together to create an intricate and stunning piece of work. When it’s all said and done, it’s Jessie’s written pieces that take command with the two musicians intuitively and expertly extemporising; the tracks consist of fascinating snippets of ‘Arrival on a Grey Day’, ‘At Kiloran: Mists to Sun’, Uragaig Set’, ‘Red Stripes and Razor Clams’, ‘Dreams in the Islands of Green’ and ‘Gannet Point’. The eleventh track is ’Hangman’s Rock’, a 26-minute tour de force which takes up all of Disc Two, with Adam’s dramatic fiddle and Murray’s hypnotic accordion highlighting Jessie’s burning words like a blazing beacon. Tales of Colonsay will be released as a double CD on June 7, along with a book featuring Jessie’s poems and illustrations.

I never ever get tired of The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s free-flowing and fiercely-creative music; may Adam and Murray’s unfailing enthusiasm, masterful musicianship and exhilarating professionalism shine on for a very long time.

---

HARBOTTLE & JONAS

Wild Goose

Brook View Records BVR004

www.harbottleandjonas.com

Devon duo David Harbottle and Freya Jonas recorded this pretty eight-track album in their home in South Brent, Dartmoor, with Cornwall-based producer Josh Best-Shaw (who also produced their acclaimed offering, The Beacon.) Harbottle & Jonas enjoy writing and recording at home: “There is no time pressure and we can tend to our daughter Rosalie and our dog Murphy with ease… Working in a studio can sometimes feel a bit mechanical with the repeated takes, but Josh allows space to pause, listen and reflect.”

Wild Goose, their fifth album, feature full-band arrangements of mystical, spiritual and supernatural material; indeed, the producer has given David and Freya free rein to transform the songs into proto-pop commercial product, with beautiful shimmering closely-intertwined harmonies to boot. Freya uses harmonium, piano and concertina, and David juggles with acoustic and electric guitars, cittern, synth, banjo, bass and glockenspiel. The session musicians are trumpeter Andy Tyner, fiddler and vocalist Richard Trethewey, drummer Jamie Gould and oboeist and singer Jenny Jonas.

Unfortunately, David and Freya’s vocals are masked by this right-on sound, and the meaning is unclear and lost. First up, Freya’s strong voice finds words of encouragement in ‘Carry On You Fishermen’, while the second track praises the Norse god of mischief, ‘Loki’. The album title song is a vivid portrait of a skein of geese, and ‘As I Walk into the Day’ is one of David and Freya’s best. ‘I Am the Captain of My Soul’ starts off with close a capella vocals and eases into cool drumbeats, and the final song, ‘Where Do You Stand?’, is a complete closer. It looks as if Wild Goose has taken off…

---

THE JAKE LEG JUG BAND

Some Glad Morning

Green Bullet Records GB2401

www.thejakelegjugband.com

Hallelujah – Duncan Wilcox, Liam Ward and Warren James have quit the demon drink and have finally seen the light! Why The Jake Leg Jug Band? One of the foremost purveyors of vintage American roots music took their name from this home-distilled Caribbean hooch, locally nick-named Jake; whenever an imbiber swayed drunkenly, fellow drinkers outlined what was the matter with him: “He’s got Jake Leg.” The band was born in the crazy Prohibition era when speakeasies and illegal alcohol mushroomed and criminal gangs flourished – and now they have released twelve gospel shouters, strident hymns and popular and obscure spirituals, all packaged up with a shining throng of jazz, folk and blues singers and musicians to cheer them on to glory.

All three Jake Leggers harmonise and vocalise hotly and passionately, as if their souls depended on it; frontman Duncan pounds double bass and mandolin, harmonica wizard Liam also juggles with jug, saw, comb and paper and jaw harp (and he’s an ex-member of Swansea-based trio The Rumblestrutters, which sadly broke up when he moved to Stroud) while Warren is extremely adept on guitar and banjo. Incidentally, Warren possesses what can be described as manic and shrill Lonnie Donegan lungs! The muso congregation summon up some uplifting jazz, and the personnel comprises Paul Shotton (saxophone and clarinet), Gabriel Garrick (trumpet), Mike Owen (saxophone), Ciaran Algar (violin), Toby Wilson (dobro) and Cohen Wilcox (washboard on two tracks). One ex-member of The Jake Leg Jug Band, Bryony Rose, makes a welcome appearance as one half of a belting female chorus; Helen Ward harmonises with her fine voice.

Some Glad Morning lights the blue touchpaper with the opening ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’ and explodes with ‘Ezekiel Saw the Wheel’, ‘Light from the Lighthouse’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away’; the mighty two-song finisher concludes with ‘Down By the Riverside’ and ‘The Old Rugged Cross’. If there is a God, you can bet that he’s smiling down on the band; and as an afterthought, I’ll take the collection!

---

APRIL 2024

---

SPILAR

Vandaag en Alle Dagen

Trad Records TRAD031

www.spilar.be/en/home

 The remarkable Belgian quintet Spilar are made up of two magical voices of sister and brother Eva and Maarten Decombel, drummer and vocalist Louis Favre and Trad Records maestros Jeroen Geerinck and Ward Dhoore. Maarten also plays for the Belgian trio Snaarmaarwaar, Mandolinman, Naragonia Quartet, Tondo and a duo with Jim Boyes (singer with Coope, Boyes and Simpson, who emigrated to Belgium); Jeroen plays guitar and synths, and he’s the Trad Records producer and Snaarmaarwaar member; mandolinist and keyboardist Ward also plays for Snaarmaarwaar and the impressive triumvirate of brothers, Trio Dhoore.

Spilar got off to a flying start with their 2020 debut album release, Stormweere, which saw them nominated for the Flanders Folk Awards two years in a row. Their follow-up album translates as ‘Today and Every Day’; it’s a marvelous, appetising cooking-pot of 16^th-century verses from the Antwerp Songbook, Bèla Fleck and Richard Thompson material, a nod and a wink to the Occitan singers of Lo Cor de la Plana and poetry from the late Kamiel Top. All nine tracks are inspiringly and delightfully fashioned to the greatest of heights – what’s more to the point, they proudly sing in the Flemish language, their instruments scored with an amazingly super-cool attitude.

The band pile in with the 1544 piece ‘Zoete Leif’ (Sweet Leif), and immediately the stunning arrangements start to flood through and absolutely jell. Next up, Kamiel Top was born in 1923 and died in 1945, and ‘Ijslandvaader’ is his arresting story of fishing off the cold seas of Iceland; and the third track is the sombre climate-change problem. ‘Wa Ga Je Cie Doen’ is Spilar’s interpretation of Bela Fleck’s ‘What’cha Gonna Do’ angry plea when future catches up and the waters cover the land. Eva and Maarten’s voices are complete harmonious heaven, and the quintet’s compelling sound rises head and shoulders above many contemporary commercial acts.

‘Acht Soldaten’ (Eight Soldiers) is Spilar’s tribute to the Marseilles-based singers Lo Cor de la Plana; Eva and Maarten voice some beautiful harmonies on ‘Verleifd & Verdwaald’ (Lost in Love), a translation of Richard Thompson’s highly memorable song ‘Waltzing’s For Dreamers’, and ‘Z.582’ recounts the tragic sinking of a Belgian fishing boat off the coast of Ramsgate, Kent. ‘Rug Naar ‘t Land’ (Back to the Land) is the late folk singer Wannes Van de Velde’s aserbic comments on nowadays, humanity still messes things up; and the the band sign off with ‘Duf Duf Duf’, a gleeful composition by Ghent singer Walter De Buck (1934-2014) and his wonderful but incident-rich trip to London. It doesn’t matter if you find Vlaamse too challenging; Spilar boast the absolute cream of Belgian musicians, who grab your ears and enquiring minds with intelligent, heads-on energy. I’ll give Vandaag en Alle Dagen a resounding thumbs up!

---

JACK BADCOCK

Cosmography

JKBC003CD

www.jackbadcock.com

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

Dallahan frontman and founding member Jack Badcock is set to release his solo debut album on May 3, 2024, fulfilling a long-held ambition and putting his wonderful and arresting songwriting skills centre stage. Lead vocalist and guitarist with the acclaimed quartet – dubbed “the flying aces of Scottish folk” by BBC Radio’s Mark Radcliffe – he was born in Ireland’s County Kilkenny, raised in Yorkshire and now lives in Glasgow. A former finalist in the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year, Jack has toured around the world with the multi-award-winning band he originally started the band with banjoist, mandolinist and fiddler Ciaran Ryan. His songwriting has increasingly come to the fore, most recently when he penned songs for Dallahan’s 2023 album Speak of the Devil (which was awarded a five-star review in FolkWales Online Magazine).

Known for his standout soulful tenor voice and his enigmatic and thought-provoking writing, Jack is on the brink of bringing out this evocative and eloquent album, produced by Ewan Burton at Glasgow’s Gloworm Studios – and it’s real corker. On Cosmography, Ewan plays bass with Louis Abbot on drums and percussion, Conor Smith  on pedal steel, Roo Geddes on violin, Ryan Murphy on uilleann pipes and Dallahan bandmate Andrew Waite on accordion. Apart from a bunch of pretty impressive voices, fine female songwriters provide backing and additional vocals and include Joy Dunlop, Siobhan Miller, Josie Duncan and Beth Malcolm.

Jack has fashioned 10 tracks of utterly rich melodic bliss with his soaring, crystal-clear vocals; first up is ‘Life In Three Dimensions’, an eight-minute tour-de-force in a trio of astonishing segments, ‘World of Worlds’, ‘Remind Me to Breathe’ and ‘All These Moments’. The next track slips into a lazy, cool tone with wonderful drums keeping time; ‘The English Samurai’ is based on an imagined letter written by 16^th-century navigator William Adams, the first Englishman to reach Japan. Adams became recognised as one of the most influential foreigners at that time, a Western samurai known in Japan as Miura Anjin who advised on trade and naval matters. When the time came for him to leave, the shogun demanded that Adams stay; and despite having a wife and children back home, he made the most of his new life in Japan.

Jack is an incisive songwriter and a hypnotic storyteller also; however, ‘The Ghost of Leland Birch’ is another song based on a poem, and the poet is Micheal Creagh, Jack’s cousin. Jack explains that on a family trip to Ireland, Michael was introduced to a whole gang of relatives he didn’t know existed and taken to a clan gathering where everybody had to do ‘a turn’. Michael’s party piece was a ode to a local late poitín distiller called Leland Birch. Jack set the poem to his striking music, and he says: “It serves as an obituary to Lely in the small town of Rathdowney, County Laois, where many of my Irish family live.” ‘How You Raise a Child’ is Jack’s lyrical condemnation of the many young people around the world who do not choose the circumstances they were born into; a whole raft of voices join him in a powerful demand: “Make our world a home / Raise them as your own.”

Jack writes a whole albumful of incisive and catchy songs – and he often finishes his gigs with ‘Entropy’, a clever vision of humanity’s all-too-brief life compared with the aeons of a galaxy: “Every animal and flora / and every planet’s bright aurora / and all the life was lived on every world / was ever gonna be a fleeting blink of history / of which I’m glad I’ve laid my humble eyes upon.”

Jack’s album launch tour fills out the month of May in Scotland and England, but sadly not Wales. My suggestion that you buy and listen to Cosmography is only a small consolation – but come on, let’s do it!

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Award-nominated Canadian indie folk quartet The Fugitives will be touring Britain from June 27 to July 15, but not Wales; if you’re travelling, you can see them in St Mary’s Church, Shrewsbury or Bristol Folk House. Songwriters Adrian Glynn and Brendan McLeod head the acoustic roots band, joined by banjo player Chris Suen and violinist Carly Frey (The Coal Porters). Their sixth album is called No Help Coming (Fallen Tree Records, FTRC0135); Adrian and Glynn wanted to write the title song about an environmental disaster, and catchy harmony songs pinpoint fraught friendships (‘Dead Money’), career changes (‘Wing and a Prayer’), coping mechanisms (‘Not Burning Out’) and romance (‘It Might Just Rain Like This For Days’). FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Wonderful British-Kurdish Alevi singer Olcay Bayir lives in her adopted home of London and gives voice to the people of Anatolia who, despite innumerable injustices, continue to preserve their language, culture and customs. Tu Gulî (You Are a Rose, Bendigedig EUCD2967) is 11 powerful Kurdish Alevi songs which honour her multicultural and multilinguistic background; she tributes the strong and devoted women of her Anatolian geography, including her own grandmothers and her mother. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Outstanding instrumental duo Airboxes are from Ghent, Belgium and consist of Guus Herremans, who plays Castagnari diatonic accordion, piano and electric bass, and Bert Leemans (Saltarelle chromatic accordion, accordina and hybrid bandoneon). Confluence (Trad Records, TRAD032) is a gorgeous 11-track album, from the opener ‘Valentino’ to the final ‘Salle à Manger’, where they compose bright and beautiful tunes; it’s all fabulous nourishment for the mind. Guest musicians are Studio Trad maestros Jeroen Geerinck (guitar, flugelhorn) and Ward Dhoore (guitar); Ludo Stichelmeyer adds  percussion. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Beside Trawbreaga Bay in County Donegal, in an old schoolhouse with a suitcase full of borrowed recording gear, Irish singer-songwriter Oisin Leech (one-half of folk duo The Lost Brothers) strums gently on an acoustic guitar for his nine-track album Cold Sea (Outside Music/Tremone Records). Despite the help of musicians like Dónal Lunny, his compositions are so laid-back that they’re horizontal – totally yawn-inducing. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs down

► Texas singer-songwriter, acoustic guitarist and international troubadour Keegan McInroe has brought out his seventh album of covid-lockdown Americana, Dusty Passports and Empty Beds (self-released, no catalogue number); with gigs totally wiped out and no money coming in, the title-track song begins: “If hindsight is 2020, I hope to never look again.” Never mind; with a snorting barrelhouse band fronting hot guitarist Matt Tedder, Keegan lays down nine numbers and playfully tributes John Prine’s death: “He’s got his rock ’n’ roll band in heaven, and I’ve got you.” Yee-hah! FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► American musicians Andy Cahan and Joseph Decosimo hail from North Carolina and have brought out a digital album, Rare Old Fiddle & Banjo Duets (Bandcamp, no catalogue number.) They have recorded a whopping 19 tracks including Appalachian reels, waltzes and schottisches, all for the bargain price of $12. Both play fiddle or banjo in different tracks, and most tunes feature Andy on fiddle and Joseph on banjo; they always spark energy and enthusiasm, from the opening ‘Snowbird’ through ‘Billy In The Lowground’, ‘Phyllis in the Ballroom’, ‘Little Black Dog Come A’Trottin’ Down the Road’ and ‘Po Black Sheep’ to the final ‘Great Big Taters in Sandyland’. Definitely two to watch. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

---

UFQ

True Story

SAECD22

www.theufq.com

UFQ stands for Birmingham-based the Urban Folk Quartet, launched in 2009; the glittering line-up is comprised of spectacular fiddlers Joe Broughton (guitar, mandolin, bass) and Galician Paloma Trigás (vocals), amazing banjoist, guitarist and singer Dan Walsh and cajon and percussion wizard Tom Chapman (vocals). Their fourth album sparks incredible energy and fire from track to gorgeous track, and it’s arguably their best yet.

The opening song is the Peter Gabriel classic ‘Solsbury Hill’; solo banjo traces the melody, Dan’s soulful voice outlines the story and every member of UFQ piles in. Fairport Convention legend Dave Pegg performs wonders with the bass, and the whole mood of the album considerably shifts up a gear; Joe and Paloma’s nine-year-old daughter, Sabela Trigás Broughton, plays along with Dave and is already an accomplished fiddler.

On the second track, ‘One Day You’ll Be Right’ Joe composes what he calls a more laid-back happy jig, and suddenly the band jumps into a giddy reel entitled ‘The Clock’. The fierce lament ‘Coal Mining Man’ was written by Ricky Skaggs’ banjo player, Jim Mills; Dan sings for all he was worth, Chris and Kellie While voice stunning harmonies and brother Ben Broughton adds slide guitar. On a more poignant note, this set features the last performances on bass of Joe’s other brother, Sal Broughton, who passed away in December 2022, aged just 30.

‘Before Your Eyes’ is a beautiful Paloma instrumental, with solo fiddle coming to the fore; immediately after, the band segues into Dan’s ‘The Whiplash Reel’, with the angry banjo spitting red-hot lava and all UFQ having a crazy ball. Roger Wilson wrote ‘Indian Tea’, and Joe says that his verses are closely based on San Francisco-born Robert Frost’s most famous poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’; and Paloma’s fiddle and Dan’s banjo have a brilliant field day on the breathless ‘Turning Point’ set. Meanwhile, the band inspiringly turns around Elder Edmund Dumas’ hymn ‘Long Time Traveller’, with Chris While’s vocals and Dave Pegg’s bass giving it some dap. Joe’s ‘Circus Tunes’ is the last track of True Story, and the sizzling twin fiddles, the eye-popping percussion and the wondrous guitar and mandolin finally break out of their dizzy helter-skelter ride – what a magnificent and totally amazing album.

UFQ all possess this crowd-pulling attitude of superb, constantly surprising musicianship, joyous harmonies and never-ending full-on sheer power. Joe and Paloma’s jaw-dropping fiddles, Tom’s ridiculously good percussion and Dan’s burning banjo and guitar have left a scorching impression in the folk scene, and I’ll reverently raise a welcome glass to that.

---

BEN NICHOLLS

Duets

Hudson Records HUD042CD

www.bennicholls.net/home

Ben Nicholls is extremely hirsute around the facial regions and is widely acclaimed as a double bassist, singer, arranger and composer working with British folk traditions and beyond. When he’s not with his own band, the Kings of The South Seas, he’s in demand as a musician and collaborator recording with a glittering array of stellar talent, including Martin Carthy, Maddy Prior, Billy Bragg, Peggy Seeger and Jarvis Cocker. He’s played in an absolute plethora of albums – but for his solo debut offering, he wanted to turn things around and make the bass the focus. He asked several musical friends to play with him on a series of duets, and says: “It was a magical journey with everyone bringing something different to the record, all held together by the voice of my old upright bass.”

First up, here’s a sizzling song to make you sit bolt upright; slinky bass notes herald the unearthly voice of Nadine Shah in the traditional favourite ‘The Cuckoo’. Then, Tim Eriksen double-tracks the shape-notes in ‘Corydon’, and John Smith tributes the magnificent musician and songwriter Richard Thompson in the classic ‘Down Where The Drunkards Roll’. Chris Vaillard and Ben play the tinkly-sounding ‘Rolling Hornpipe’; Jon Boden polishes off an impressive job in the soaring ‘Polly Vaughan’ and the lovely vocals of Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman’s reed-organ perform ‘I Wonder What’s Keeping My True Love Tonight’, with Ben accompanying them. Ben’s bowed bass and Patsy Reid’s sulky fiddle brilliantly hit off the blues tune ‘Tibby Fowler’, Kris Drever does ‘The Greenland Whale Fisheries’ in his own inimitable fashion, while Chaim Tannenbaum and his banjo interpret the dramatic ‘Munchhausen’. Martin Simpson’s amazing guitar and his individual voice light the blue touchpaper on the well-known ‘Flash Company’, and Sam Sweeney’s stupendous fiddle and Ben’s bass delicately dance around each other in ‘Northern Frisk’. Seth Lakeman injects venom in ‘The Fire’, Fay Hield tells a dark tale in ‘Bloody Gardener’, while Evan Jenkins’ cello and the bowed bass bring the proceedings to a perfect end with ‘Elfen Waltz’.

Duets is a fascinating and completely surprising album; Ben’s musicianship brings a completely satisfying and solidly anchoring depth to all his recording sessions far and wide.

---

LAUREN COLLIER

Uddevalla

CPRCD001

www.laurencollier.co

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

Lauren Collier is a young and very impressive Scottish fiddler and singer who comes from Irvine in North Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow; her debut album, which is named after a coastal town in Sweden, is extremely beautiful and a breath of fresh air. Her band is composed of Calum Muir (guitars, synths), Paul Jennings (drums and percussion), Breabach member James Lindsay (bass, Moog) and the amazing Ross Ainslie (bansuri, whistles), who regularly plays for many musicians including Treacherous Orchestra, Salsa Celtica, Ali Hutton and Brighde Chaimbeul. Lauren takes her audience on a delightfully unconventional magic carpet ride around Europe and the world on a discovery wonder-tour, and her appetising menu is alluringly international in a distinctively super-cool and thoroughly defiant way.

Uddevalla opens with ‘Padangbal’, a Lauren composition which firmly raises the bar; it quietly steals up on you, with spacy synth, rippling acoustic guitar and luscious smoky fiddle that prowls and probes. Paul’s percussion solidly anchors the band as the gorgeous tune breaks out and magnificently swells in many a giddy and a totally fascinating rhythmic episode. The second track immediately follows after; her sweet soprano voice casts sunshine and shadow on the traditional Haitian song ‘Kouman Nou Ye’ while the band melts into a delicious and very hip French branle. On a different note, the Shetland fiddler Leonard Scollay co-wrote the lovely reel ‘Myrakle’ before he was tragically drowned in a fishing boat accident, and Ali Hutton penned the exhilarating ‘Psychopomps’ to make a perfect set; and Lauren soundly scores with a stunning version of the Indian traditional song ‘Talariya Magariya’, her assured vocals forming a complete likeness of the great Bollywood artists, Paul’s drums striking a vivid impression of bhangra sounds and Ainsley’s bansuri is absolutely bubbling over.

Her fiddle darts to Macedonia and Greece (‘Horo’) while she celebrates the estimated talents of the Norwegian traditional violinist and composer Gjermund Larsen (‘Reiseslått’); and Lauren, Calum and Paul have an absolute field day when they put their heads together and create the swaggering and thoroughly impudent ‘Rhesus Macaque’, with her mighty fiddle and the band soaring away with flights of fancy. In the two-set ‘Traktor’, Capercaillie musician and Celtic Connections director Donald Shaw pens the gay jig ‘Islands On The Edge’, while ‘Lompa Køyre Traktor’ is composed by Hardanger fiddler Olav Luksengård Mjelva (who comes from the town of Røros in the Sør-Trøndelag region of Norway and plays in the Norwegian-Swedish ensemble SVER, The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc and The Lodestar Trio).

The final ‘Uddevalla’ set is made up of two Swedish traditional tunes, ‘Marsch Från Nås’ and ‘Magdalenapolskan’, with Lauren’s elegant fiddle urging them on and Calum, Paul, James and Ross just soaring and swooping – what a perfect way to end the collection. I was utterly transfixed by the wonderful nine tracks; she firmly embraces the traditions of the world, while saluting and acknowledging the many inspiring musicians who help to keep global music very much alive. Needless to say that I just cannot wait for her follow-up album.

---

MARCH 2024

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Once a veteran of the San Fransisco rock scene, Michigan native Bart Moore located to the Lancing area, eschewed his Les Paul for an acoustic guitar and made himself a presence in the local clubs. His third album, Wild Flora (Self-released, no catalogue number) is really something else; crazy, impudent singing and genius writing, a love for Ireland and nine tracks to make you laugh and shout with joy, from the opening ‘Molly Bloom’, ‘The Railyard Ghosts’, ‘God Is Just Plain Lazy’ and the beautiful closer ‘Mattie’s Song (She’s Walking On Time)’. His excellent band is to die for and Grant Flick executes some jaw-dropping violin – what an absolute corker. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Singer-songwriter, frenetic fiddler and multi-instrumentalist Will Page collaborates with Show of Hands’ Steve Knightley in his debut solo album Still Standing (Union Music Label UML024); with Cormac Byrne (bodhran, percussion) and Jack Hosgood (bass guitar, piano, keyboards), he summons up a super-energetic maelstrom of sub-pop sounds that just sizzles and spits fire. Whether he’s cruising with the band or he’s completely alone with his acoustic guitar, these 10 tracks cry out to be heard. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist Charlie Parr comes from Duluth, Minnesota, writes songs and totes guitar and harmonica; his album, Little Sun, is an eight-track hotch-potch of mid-west snarling and growling Americana which really doesn’t come off on this side of the Pond. For example, audiences may adore his work in Colorado or Utah, but 10 to one says he might bomb in Cardiff or Carmarthen. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs down

 ► Shipshape and Bristol fashion! Jonathan ‘JD’ Darley, Andy Yates and Robbie Sattin met and bonded over sea shanties across a kitchen table in their native city a decade ago, and The Longest Johns have reimagined many of maritime folk’s classics while adding their own unique style of songwriting to the melting pot to keep the flame of the tradition alive. Their fifth album, Voyage, is brimming over with 14 salty tracks of frantic fiddle and banjo, crashing percussion and glorious harmony, from ‘The Llandoger’ and ‘Whisky Is the Life of Man’ to ‘Shawneetown’ and the closing ‘Paddy West’ – it’s all good fun. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

---

RUTH MOODY

Wanderer

Blue Muse Records BMRCD/LP005

www.ruthmoody.com

Maybe it’s her butterfly-fragile, otherworldly soprano voice or her inspired songwriting, but singer and award-winning musician Ruth Moody has worked amazing wonders with her third solo album. She was born in Australia but grew up on a goat farm near Winnipeg in the Canadian province of Manitoba; Ruth, who is founder member of the harmony trio The Wailin’ Jennys, co-produced Wanderer with Dan Knobler in Nashville, Tennessee. Exquisite artist Roberta Landreth designed the striking front cover of a boot which is transformed by a crescent moon, streams, plants and mysterious mountains, and the CD booklet is peppered with song lyrics and magical images. Perhaps it’s just as well; producer Dan masterfully and majestically creates a shimmering half-world where Ruth’s vocals are well mixed down and her words and meaning are lost and unclear. Still, she maintains a soothing, dreamy atmosphere; and the most upbeat piece in the set, ‘Seventeen’, is caressed with bitter-sweet memories of unrequited love and is utterly gorgeous.

Ruth plays guitar, plus banjo on two tracks, and the core musicians are Sam Howard (upright bass), Anthony da Costa (guitars), Jason Burger (percussion) and Kai Welch and Will Honaker (piano and keyboards). A dozen sessioners drop in to lend a hand, including Canadian roots music standout Joey Landreth, who duets with Ruth on ‘The Spell of the Lilac Bloom’, Russ Paul (pedal steel), Nat Smith (cello), producer Dan (acoustic guitar) and Ruth’s older brother Richard (violin, viola, mandolin).

Ruth spends her time between Vancouver Island and Nashville, where she’s busy night and day on the road with her band or The Wailin’ Jennys. Her windswept, desolate vocals and her song-sculpturing really set the seal on this 10-track album, from the elegant but alluringly complex opener ‘Already Free’, the sorry break-up of ‘Michigan’, the homage to her Winnipeg home in ‘North Calling’, finishing with the hopeful optimism of ‘Comin’ Round The Bend’. She’s made it into a work of immaculate beauty; it’s captivating, tempting and oh-so sweetly feminine. In short, I like it one hell of a lot.

---

MALIN LEWIS

Halocline

Hudson Records HUD051CD

www.malinlewis.co.uk

Malin Lewis hits on a description as “a pioneering queer bagpiper, instrument maker and composer”, and requests that personal pronouns should be addressed as “they/them”. Malin certainly is a remarkable musician and an inspiring arranger; strongly influenced by the pipes’ captivating sounds from a young age, growing up in Moidart and Skye in North West Scotland and now living in Glasgow, Malin began creating the instruments, starting with simple experiments of drilling holes in sticks and inserting chanter reeds. Aged 15, Malin discovered the innovative Lindsay System Chanter, a two-octave 3D printed smallpipe. Enthralled by the instrument’s possibilities, Malin collaborated with its inventor Donald Lindsay to create the world’s first wooden version of the instrument.

Drawing its name from the halocline, a visible layer of water in northern latitudes formed between saltwater and freshwater, this jaw-dropping album symbolises Malin’s existence as a trans person in a space of inspiration and individuality. Malin says: “I got my first halocline whilst swimming in an estuary in the Isle of Skye. I didn’t know what it was at the time but the image has stayed with me ever since. Appearing like a hazy layer of cloud under the water, it floats between two worlds and provides an environment which is home to a unique microbial system. As a trans person, I live in a space in between; this beautiful space between a binary with its own colourful and unique culture.” The striking front picture shows Malin bedecked with many sea and razor-clam shells, designed by photographer and mask maker Danielle MacLeod in the Isle of Lewis.

Malin darts between smallpipes, border pipes, fiddle and low whistle; Halocline is entirely instrumental, and the superb musicians are Luc McNally (bouzouki, acoustic and electric guitars), Cammy Maxwell (double bass, synth), Maija Kauhanen (kantele, voice), Matthew Herd (saxophones), Stuart Brown (percussion). Michael Owers (brass)   and Sally Simpson (additional fiddle). The opening track is ‘Hiraeth’, a Welsh or Gaelic translation for longing for a homeland, when the lone pipes plays a mournful, desolate air; almost instantaneously and band segues into ‘Trans’, and Malin works amazing wonders with the fingers. The lovely ‘Cycle Lane’ is Malin’s tribute to the magnificent lanes for cyclists when living in the Finnish capital of Helsinki; ‘Freshwater’ and ‘Saltwater’ describe the clear body of water and the murkier, denser water that sit above and below the halocline. ‘Luna’s’ is a lovable and slightly wonky rescue dog that Malin used to know, and ‘A Clearing’ is a tune that just emerged from times of feeling low. ‘Tune 51’ paints a picture of the awful pandemic and Malin’s notebook when writing a total of 50 tunes, and ‘The Old Inn’ is a wonderful pub in Carbost in the Isle of Skye, where Malin played many sessions. The ‘Elision’ set consists of two traditional Bulgarian Kokanitsas, lively tunes for dancing that Malin learned from James Ross; and the closing track is ‘You Are Not Alone’, a beautiful melody composed by Mark Talts, learned to Malin by Finlay MacDonald who learned it in Estonia. Malin says: “I love the way music travels the world when musicians share their work with one another; and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to learn this tune.”

Malin leads the 11 tracks of Halocline in a very subtle but completely masterful attidude, and the very accomplished musicians support the young player all the way. Malin and Hudson label owner Andy Bell co-produced the album at GloWorm Studios in Glasgow; Hudson has earned the enviable reputation of recording brilliant quality from the artists, and Malin has become the latest member of that stellar company.

---

ERIC BIBB

Live at the Scala Theatre, Stockholm

Repute Records SPCD/LP1486

www.ericbibb.com

Legendary blues troubadour Eric Bibb’s latest album is indescribably wonderful! Born on August 16, 1951 as an African American, Eric’s youth was spent totally immersed in the New York Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s. Names like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger were visitors to his home, and he was deeply influenced by Odetta, Ritchie Havens and Taj Mahal. His father was the late Leon Bibb, an activist, actor and folk singer who marched at Selma with Dr Martin Luther King. Eric’s 50-year career spans three Grammy nominations, many Blues Foundation awards and countless more accolades, and his new offering was recorded and cherry-picked in 2023 at the Scala Theatre in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The delighted audience treasured that magic night, and for those of us who couldn’t be there, this precious ten-track collection is one to savour and really enjoy.

A glittering line-up of stellar musicians is featured, including Eric’s long-time collaborator, musical director and producer Glen Scott on bass, keyboards, drums and backing vocals, Olle Linder on drums and acoustic bass, Johan Lindström on pedal steel and electric guitar, Christer Lyssarides on electric guitar and mandola, Esbjörn Hazelius on fiddle and cittern, Greger Andersson on harp, Lamine Cissokho on kora and vocals, special guest vocalists Sarah Dawn Finer, Rennie Mirro and Ulrika Bibb, as well as string arrangements by Erik Arvinder and David Davidson, performed by Hanna Helgegren and Sarah Cross on violins, Christopher Öhrman on viola and Josef Ahlin on cello. The immediate effect is one of completely satisfying and spellbinding orchestral music, with Eric’s honeyed but appealingly strong voice and his fluent acoustic guitar rising above the swelling sound.

First up is the traditional blues song ‘Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad’, and the Swedes just lap up Eric’s sound; his compositions ‘Silver Spoon’ and ‘Along The Way’ come next, appetising aperitifs to appreciate, and by the time that he goes into Lead Belly’s classic ‘Bring Me Little Water, Silvie’, the crowd is just about eating from the palm of Eric’s hand. He interprets Walter Vinson’s rousing ‘Things Is ‘Bout Comin’ My Way’, and his bitter account of the destruction of his family home, ‘Rosewood’, is really moving. He co-wrote ‘Whole World’s Got The Blues’, and the shimmering string quartet magically enhances his ‘River Blues’ – it’s quite spectacular. Eric completes his triumphant performance with a brace of well-known and well-loved traditional songs ‘500 Miles’ and ‘Mole In The Ground’, and the fans came away from the theatre completely sated.

Eric is well respected for performing around the globe and touring all the UK arts centres and venues; he’s appearing at the Rye International Jazz and Blues Festival, East Sussex, and the prestigious Shrewsbury Folk Festival which runs to the long weekend of August 23-26.

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Machynlleth harper Cerys Hafana turns well-known English and Scottish folk songs on their venerable heads as she (in the her own words) mangles and mutates five tracks in the digital EP The Bitter (Bandcamp, no catalogue number); Iestyn Tyne voices Dafydd ap Gwilym’s ‘Caru Merch Fonheddig’ poetry and Elaine Turnbull blows horns and cornetti as Cerys transforms ‘The Bitter Withy’, ‘Child Owlet’, ‘The Wife of Usher’s Well’ and ‘Willy o’Winsbury’ into a hypnotic and mesmerising brew – however, ‘Lyke Wake Dirge’ is a bit scrappy and unprepared. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► The Cape Verde volcanic islands lie about 300 miles off the bulge of Africa; wonderful singer Nancy Vieira releases an exciting new album of stories, dreams and longings entitled Gente (Galileo GMC107), Portuguese for People. She recorded these 14 moving and oh-so-passionate songs in Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese with accompanying acoustic guitars, accordion, bass and percussion in Lisbon, Portugal, the city of Nancy’s work and life now. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► The unmistakable expressively-voiced Portuguese fado singer who answers to the unusual name of LINA_ releases her impressive album featuring the lyrics of Portugal’s most celebrated poet Luís de Camões, Fado Camões (Galileo GMC106), with Justin Adams’ expert production. She delights the armchair audience with 12 stunning tracks tributing the poet’s verses, starting with the beautiful ‘Desamor’ and finishing with the uplifting ‘Pois Meus Olhos Nao Cansam de Chorar’. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Composer, producer and enigmatic singer Esbe takes you on a starlit stroll around the back streets, alleyways and iconic bridges over the hundreds of canals of Venice, or as the 17^th century Venetians christened the waterbound medieval city La Serenissima (New Cat Music NC241). Hypnotic and artfully clever, her ninth 12-track album mixes folk, classical and experimental sounds as she creates a vivid aural sketchbook, from the mysterious 1602 opener ‘Amarilli, Mia Bella’ to the final closer ‘La Serenissima Remembered’. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► At 67 years of age, retired railway driver, local councillor and songwriter Bill Dodds is a welcome floor-spot singer that should keep folk clubs warmly thriving in his Newcastle upon Tyne area. Unfortunately, his debut album (Closer, released independently, no catalogue number) clearly demonstrates Bill’s pedestrian performance, despite producer Dan Whitehouse adding accompaniment to enhance the atmosphere. Bill’s deadpan personality and voice masks his prolific compositions, which is a pity; still, better luck next time. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs down

---

COWBOIS RHOS BOTWNNOG

Mynd â’r Tŷ am Dro

Sbrigyn Ymborth SY037

www.facebook.com/cowboisrhb/

Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog are one hell of a delightful enigma; three brothers, Iwan, Aled and Dafydd Hughes, grew up on the west of the Llŷn peninsula, where they experiment with alternative country, folk and heady rock with bewildering alacrity. They were formed in 2006 and released their first album in 2007; they recorded their follow-up 2010 offering Dyddiau Du, Dyddiau Gwyn (with producer David Wrench) to widespread acclaim and airplay. They released their third 2012 album, Draw Dros y Mynydd (again with David Wrench), and in 2023 the live album Yn Fyw! Galeri Caernarfon came out. They have just released their sixth album – in translation, Taking the House for a Walk – which includes nine tracks that honour the home in which they were born.

The album was recorded in Sain studios in Llandwrog, Llŷn; lead singer Iwan plays acoustic and electric guitars, mouth organ and keyboards, backing vocalist Aled does bass, electric guitar and keyboards while Dafydd is the drummer. A number of musicians enhance Mynd â’r Tŷ am Dro – Branwen Hâf Williams on vocals and piano, Llŷr Pari on electric guitar, Euron Jones on pedal steel guitar, Gethin Wyn Griffiths on organ and electric piano and Georgia Ruth Williams on vocals. The set is drenched with strolls down a sentimental path, full of memories – opening track ‘Clawdd Eithin’ is there, with standout banjo and pedal steel, and here is following album title song. Songscribe Iwan writes on love, such as ‘Defodau’ and ‘Magl’, and passionate voices ring out in beautiful harmony. The band keeps the audience guessing, with folk-like riffs somersaulted to full-on heads-down rock and guitars howling in feedback.

Two landmark tracks finish the album: A Iwan Llwyd poem, ‘Cyrraedd Glan’, and their respectful salute to Bob Delyn a’r Ebillion’s classic ‘Blodau Haearn Blodau Glo’. Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog are soaring mightily high on their mystery journey when they chuck the rigid labels out of the window – is it folk? Is it Americana? Is it rock? We will never know…

---

CRAIG JOINER

A Kind of Calm

Molano Music MM009

www.craigjoinermusic.com/

Although this wonderfully dexterous acoustic guitarist and prolific singer/songwriter has forged a career and won repute in the rock arena, folk music has always been his true muse and calling. Craig was a 15-year-old boy when he played his first gig at the Cellar Folk Club in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire; but it was in 1987 that his band, Romeo’s Daughter, signed with Jive Records and released an album a year later. The self-titled album spawned a whirlwind tour of the USA and saw one of the hit singles shoot up the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart there. From there on, the band’s successful and infectious sound has attracted the highest calibre of established artists, with various covers making huge hits. Craig’s songs have also been recorded by singers as diverse as Bonnie Tyler and Steps and featured in major Hollywood movies. His compositions have been used on programmes including Friends, Cold Feet, European Golf and by Disney. Craig is also the co-writer of the theme tune for the long-running BBC-1 comedy panel TV show Would I Lie To You?  – and as a session musician, he has played guitar for an impressive list of names, including Tom Jones.

He performs in intimate venues, such as arts centres and many folk clubs – and I really like his forthcoming 10-track album, which is released in May 26. Craig is a master storyteller, and his strong, passionate voice weaves hypnotic tales in his set. A Kind of Calm just explodes from the opening ‘The Wedding Day of Eliza May’ and the following traditional song ‘Mary and The Soldier’; his audience is hanging onto his yarn ‘Old Will’ – and ‘Fanny Adams’ unfolds the dreadful demise of that poor eight-year-old child, whose untimely death spurred the popular 19^th-century phrase.

Putting aside his own material, he returns to folksong for the end of his album. Glaswegian and folk icon Harry Robertson, who died in 1995, retired to Australia and in 1971 he recorded his famous song ‘Ballina Whalers’ on his album Whale Chasing Men — Songs of Whaling In Ice And Sun. The original song was different, with Harry writing couplets of the verses which he then sang in shanty style; the legendary singer Nic Jones picked up on and altered Harry’s song, which he recorded from his 1980 Penguin Eggs album under the mistitle ‘The Humpback Whale’ – and Nic failed to credit Harry’s work. Craig chose to go for Nic’s interpretation, and ‘The Humpback Whale’ is a magnificently savage account of a hard and bloody life. Craig concludes his show with the beautiful chorus song ‘Row On’; this traditional lament was found by Gail Huntington in an 1864 New Bedford, Massachusetts journal, and the melody was composed by Tim Laycock. Craig is really in his element in this genre, and his intricate guitar puts a bright shine on his impressive repertoire. More, please!

---

FAR FLUNG COLLECTIVE

To a Sea Cliff

Far Flung Records FFC003

www.birnamcd.com/birnam-pr/sea-cliff

Far Flung Collective was formed in 2015 between the English Soundstorm Music Education Agency and the Scottish University of the Highlands and Islands and includes a quartet of folk troubadour Alex Roberts, traditional fiddler and composer Anna-Wendy Stevenson on fiddle and whistle, multi-instumentalist and jazzer Dan Somogyi and rising vocal star Mabel Duncan on guitar and fiddle. The project linked musicians in Southern England with peers based in the Gaelic Outer Hebrides and spawned a 2017 debut album called Far Flung Corners, followed up with Black Bay in 2020.

The third offering, To a Sea Cliff, was born in extraordinary circumstances following the international covid lockdown in 2020. Because of the ban on social gatherings, a short-burst creative residency was scrapped and the entire album was created online. Far Flung Collective used drums, samples and programming for the first time – partly, they say, out of necessity to enable in-time recording to be achieved across the digital ether. Rock, classical and jazz influences appear alongside folk.

The album comprises four sections: The South, Between The South and The North, The North and The Atlantic. The South has seven tracks in its homage to the Dorset coast: the opening ‘Durdle Door’, with a dreamy guitar-plucked riff and voices breaking out in quiet harmony; the Thomas Hardy poem ‘To a Sea Cliff’; Mabel whispers ‘The Edge of Nowhere’,  ‘The Sea, The Sea’ describes the mighty Jurassic Coast and ponders how miniscule humans are; the weird dissonance of ‘Butterfly’; the grandeur of ‘The Sussex Weald’ and the synthetic strings of ‘The Cliffs of Dorset’. To be quite honest, the tracks sound very like 1970s psychedelia; try as I might, I can’t get images of Mabel in a Laura Ashley long flowing dress out of my mind.

Between The South And The North waves goodbye to a brace of compositions; Liam Sutherland composed ‘Waves’, inspired from his rugged coastline, and ‘Thagadh Flodh/The Lives of Three Wattles’ molds Gaelic singing and Southern English dialect.  The North has a quartet of gay Highland jigs, airs and reels, but descends into the inevitable rock. The last part, The Atlantic, is a mind-blowing nine-and-a-half minute maelstrom of hypnotic dub, heady jazz, honking saxophones, synthetic pipes, fiddles and whistles. To a Sea Cliff is a bit of a curate’s egg; I‘ve listened to the album many times before deciding whether to like it or loathe it. Aw, shucks – it’s caught me in a good mood today, and I’ll have to give Far Flung Collective the grudging thumbs-up!

---

PHOEBE REES

Bring In The Light: Si Kahn’s Songs of Courage and Resistance

Strictly Country Records

www.phoeberees.co.uk

Years ago, young Phoebe Rees came down to Llantrisant Folk Club and amazed and delighted everybody with her sparkling fiddle and song repertoire. She was born in the Debatable Lands, in the shadow of Old Oswestry, a 3,000-year-old settlement just five miles from the Welsh border in Shropshire, England; but Shropshire has a bulge, which included Oswestry. The market and railway town still clings to the Welsh culture – indeed, Croesoswallt is its Welsh name.

Phoebe is now 31 years old, and her life was strongly influenced by music. Her mother worked in a music store and she bought home clarinet, concertina, accordion, recorder and ocarina. Phoebe grew up listening to Schubert, Bob Dylan and traditional Bolivian dance music; she worked in a community arts project in São Paulo, Brazil, and as a volunteer director for a choir for poor children in Mumbai, India. Phoebe also drew inspiration from various Celtic, English and American folk traditions, living and playing music in the Scottish Highlands, studying classical viola in Edinburgh and a growing and passionate commitment to social justice. It was no surprise that legendary long-time organiser, American musician and brilliant songwriter Si Khan was so impressed by her recording of his ‘Mississippi Summer’ that he invited her to record her first full-length album to celebrate his 80^th birthday and to carry his music forward long after he is gone.

Bring In The Light was recorded and mixed at Studio Doornenburg in The Netherlands and has 14 tracks of Si’s wonderful songs, boosted with Pheobe’s assured voice, her viola, fiddle and her piano; Janos Koolen accompanies her with banjo, guitar, accordion and bodhràn, Lucas Beukers is on acoustic bass and Sophie Hanna harmonises on vocals. From the opening ‘High On a Mountain With Ola Bella Reed’ and ‘In Afghanistan’, through ‘When the War Is Done’, ‘Peace Will Rise’ and ‘Molly In the Mill’ to the closing ‘Freedom Is a Constant Song’ and ‘People Like You’ – and last but not least, ‘Mississippi Summer’ – the whole album is a sheer delight.

Phoebe’s performing style is energetic, engaging and quietly charismatic. She’s a lovely person; in these troubled times, she helps to lift up that light, giving us all a reason to believe. In fact, the respected hammered dulcimer wizard and American folk singer John McCutcheon gives us the finest compliment: “Phoebe’s considerable musicianship, both as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, completely inhabits this project.” And that, folks, is really saying something.

---

MIGUEL GIRÃO

The Northern Isles Suite (EP)

MG001

www.miguelgirao.com/about/

Watch out for Miguel Girão, stunning Portuguese acoustic guitarist, tutor, member of Shetland quartet Tern and exhilarating accompanist to breathtaking piano player and Shetlander Amy Laurenson. Originally from the Midlands of Portugal and now based in Glasgow, Scotland, Miguel graduated on Classical Guitar at Lisbon’s Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and is now studying Traditional Music at Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. As a young boy, Miguel concentrated on classical guitar – but he was introduced to traditional music in his first year of high school, where he met a local fiddle player who sparked his interest in folk music. From now on, Miguel’s love for Scottish and Shetland music just grew and grew.

The Northern Isles Suite is comprised of four movements of traditional tunes from Orkney and Shetland, arranged for solo acoustic guitar by him. First up, Miguel develops the lovely melody ‘Da Day Dawn’, and just as the sun rises, he interprets the striking ‘Deerness Reel’ and lights the blue touchpaper with the percussive ‘Da Sholders Geo’. Miguel’s solo instrument is a sheer delight; he rings the changes with the third piece, ‘The Standing Stones of Stenness’, and the final part is ‘Da Trowie Burn’, a beautiful air attributed to Friedemann Stickle, the legendary Unst fiddler. The ‘trows’ are Shetland’s faeries or little folk: “Dey come oot in mass aboot da end of November and go back again aboot da fower an’ twentyith night, what dey ca’ Up-Helly-A’.”

This EP was recorded by Bob Whitney at RCS Studio and mixed and mastered by Scott Turnbull. Miguel has extended his sincere thanks to his Kickstarter Crowdfunding backers and the Martyn Bennett Memorial Trust for supporting the project.

---

JULIE ATKIN

Blackbird

Independent release; no catalogue number

www.gavinatkin.bandcamp.com/album/blackbird

Julie Atkin lives with her musician husband Gavin in the village of Marden, Kent; both she and Gavin have amassed 15 well-known and less well-travelled traditional songs, and the album is a welcome treasure trove and reference point for any eager enthusiasts who have embarked on the magical journey of folk discovery. Julie trained as a classical singer, and her bright and clear soprano voice sparks and energises ancient and venerable songs; like a curator restoring an old portrait, she polishes off the dust and grime and gives the melodies a new, proud shine. Gavin accompanies her on acoustic guitar and diatonic accordeon, and his minimal empathetic playing is just enough to let her songs grow and blossom. In short, it’s exquisite.

Julie and Gavin take you on a voyage of interesting facts and folk stories; the album booklet makes great reading. The opening song, the minor-key ‘The Banks of Inverary’, was collected by Henry and Robert Hammond from carter Robert Barratt of Puddletown in the county of Dorset in 1905, one of a number of songs that are usually found in Scotland. This intriguing problem can be explained as a result of a Scottish regiment being stationed in the South Coast during the Napoleonic era, as collector and singer Nick Dow notes. The original song was called ‘The Banks of Inverurie’, and Julie leads the story on to its final conclusion. In contrast, the following story-ballad ‘Georgie’ comes from Scotland and England, but Julie and Gavin plump for the particularly lovely melody that Joseph Taylor sang to composer Percy Grainger in 1906. Taylor could only remember one verse, so author and ethnomusicologist Bert Lloyd cobbled together the narrative from different sources for Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s book 21 Lincolnshire Folk Songs, published in 1968. In his children’s book The Magical City, Lloyd believed ‘Polly Vaughan’ to be a magical tale about a young woman who transformed into a swan or a deer at night, but was killed by her lover when he was out hunting. Her ghost then appears in court to stop him being executed, and Julie’s mesmeric storytelling transfixes one and all.

‘Lavender’s Green’ turned up among the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould’s notoriously difficult to read notes, but Gavin made sense of the manuscript and fashioned it into a sweet little song; ‘The Waters of Tyne’ is included in the classic 1882 Northumbrian Minstrelsy; and Julie heard the enchanting singer Peta Webb performing the beautiful ‘If I Were a Blackbird’, which of course forms the title of her album. Both the Cork-born singer and banjo player Margaret Barry and the Shropshire troubadour Fred Jordan sang the ubiquitous ‘The Galway Shawl’, but surprisingly it was collected as early as 1936 by Sam Henry from Ulsterwoman Bridget Kealey of Dungiven, County Derry – and the macabre children’s song ‘Three Mice Went Into a Hole to Spin’ came from the 1912 book Little Songs of Long Ago. The track notes say: “If you enjoy cats biting the heads off mice, this is the song for you!”

A remarkable snippet: when Joseph Taylor sang ‘Once I Courted a Damsel’ for Grainger, he remembered only two verses and sang a couple of lines which did not belong. Gavin and Julie’s friend, the folk scholar Ruairidh Grieg, noticed the rogue lines were from ‘The Brookside’, a poem by Richard Monckton Milne, later Lord Houghton, which was published in 1829 – and Julie sings Milne’s ‘Brookside’ verses to Taylor’s beautiful tune, with grateful thanks to Ruairidh. Many years ago, Gavin bought a battered old paperback copy of Colm O’Cochlainn’s Irish Street Ballads, and ‘The Tanyard Side’ has been a firm favourite ever since; and Julie performs ‘Cold Blows The Wind’, Romany singer May Bradley’s version of ‘The Unquiet Grave’. (Here’s an extra fact, which I can chuck in – May was born in Monmouth and she was fluent in the Welsh language and Romany. She married a Smith from Denbighshire and settled in Ludlow, Shropshire.)

Ralph Vaughan Williams collected ‘The Old Garden Gate’ from a wood-cutter, named in his notes as Mr Broomfield in East Hornden, Essex; his surname was actually Broomfield and he lived in East Horndon. ‘The Winter’s Gone and Past’, one of the ‘Curragh of Kildare’ family of songs, is a composite version made up of three verses from Joseph Vincent of Wareham, Dorset, and one verse from Mrs Marina Russell of Upwey, a prolific singer and great-aunt to the much-missed Paul Sartin, who lived only 20 miles from Mr Vincent. This wonderful song, ‘As I Roved Out’, came from Paddy Tunney, who inherited it from his mother, Brigid Tunney, her brother Michael Gallagher and a great-aunt who was also named Brigid; and Julie concludes her set with the folk classic ‘The Turtle Dove’, collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1907 from Mr Penfold, landlord of The Plough Inn at Rusper in West Sussex – what’s more, The Plough is still going on still.

Julie and Gavin have selected an important volume of songs which have lasted for years and which, hopefully, will carry on for ever – but it’s her assured and strong voice which has revived them and instilled a glittering freshness. As I said: it’s exquisite.

---

FEBRUARY 2024

---

VÄRIVARJO

Courage In Colour

Sleight of Hand Records SOHR2401CD

www.varivarjo.com

Värivargo is a Helsinki-based experimentalist duo consisting of wonderful accordionist and piano player Tommie Black-Roff, musician and composer from Cornwall and member of the trio TEYR who commutes between Britain and the Nordic countries, and guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Joni Vierre. Their Finnish name translates as ‘colour-shadow’, and they liken Värivarjo to a music laboratory, a testing ground in which they bridge the divide between folk and jazz genres through composing and improvisation. The two musicians reveal: “The outcome isn’t always known from the outset, but the journey is what counts.”

Tommie holds a diverse background in folk music, electronics, classical music and improvisation. From a young age, he was immersed in local Cornish folk, classical and church music. He completed a BA in ethnomusicology at the University of London and then worked for a number of years on the UK folk circuit with other bands, including TEYR; in 2017, he moved to the Nordic countries to pursue the Nordic Master in Folk Music program, travelling and studying between Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. Now Tommie works both in the UK and the Nordics; recent solo work saw him premier Human Movement, a piece for accordion and gestural electronics which blended music and dance. Current duo projects include Ville & Tommie, which launched its debut album, Stuffed Pockets, in 2023, and Värivarjo, who have just released this new album. Tommie is a musical director with Cornish company Cousin Jack’s, and he’s still a musician of TEYR and the Helsinki Cèilidh Band; he also teaches and runs a yearly Crean Folk Camp for musicians in the far west of Cornwall.

For Courage In Colour, Joni and Tommie write individually, culminating in their collaboration on track number nine; titled ‘Värivarjo’, it’s a fluid acoustic guitar and sultry accordion piece which breaks out into pretty musical florets. For all the album, Joni and Tommie take listeners by the hand and lead them into a magical dreamscape which is oh-so satisfying. The opening track is Joni’s ‘Havaintoja Lasipallosta’, a lazy and summery minor-key riff between accordion and acoustic guitar, which reaches out and explores a plethora of ear-catching and mind-bending chords; next up is Joni’s ‘Sorina’, with male and female dissonant voices hypnotically echoing and Devina Boughton taking in trumpet. Now Tommie takes his turn and composes the elegant ‘Idling’; his piano and the electric guitar lead a merry dance. ‘Piispanrannan Valssi’ is Joni’s tune, and it’s made of beautiful accordion sounds and entrancing acoustic guitar.

Joni’s and Tommie’s writing works wonders in the most spectacular fishion; they generate a magical sixth sense where their freeform playing just draws the audience in. Tommie’s ‘Anker’ is a fierce, throbbing accordion extravaganza, and his ‘Bells and Blossom’ is a over-six-minutes dizzy accordion reel with the harsh guitar fuzztone soaring away. ‘Listen to the Valley’ is just accordion bliss; and Joni’s ‘Make Me an Ending’ wraps the album up completely, with the duo’s acoustic instruments in perfect sublime togetherness. Värivarjo’s unique invention just inspires and excites me; it’s a satisfying blend of two superb musicians and the meeting of minds – what an exquisite album.

---

POLENTA

Karkelo

POLCD003

www.polenta.com

Polenta is a wonderful young fiddle-and-guitar quartet from Kaustinen, Finland, the traditional home of the fiddle; the band consists of fiddler Aino Kinnunen, five-string fiddlers Veera Kuisma and Olli Sippola and guitarist Mikko Malmivaara, and their gorgeously complicated performance is just amazing, inspiring and utterly joyful. In the Finnish language, polenta also translates as ‘a stomp’, dancing and grooving to the music – and these  fiddles create a fabulous, ringing sound which is also highly innovative but remaining true to Nordic tradition as well.

Their second album is just released, and it doesn’t disappoint in the lightest. Veera has composed the opening title tune, the marvellous ‘Karkelo’ – ‘Celebration’, in the Finnish language, and also the name for a Finnish quadrille –  and all the foursome contribute and write nearly all the 10 tracks (except for the giddy ‘Ykköspolska’ (Polska Number One), by the Finnish fiddler Jonna Lankinen.) ‘Karkelo’ throws down the gauntlet and sets the pace, and next up is Mikko’s inventive and shimmering ‘Skål!’ (Cheers!); the tension builds up until the band roar their way to the next party. Olli writes ‘Sippolan Ollin Katrilli’ (Olli Sippola’s Quadrille) and he and Aino share the beautiful and delicate ‘Polska Polun Varrelta’ (Polska Along the Path), while Aino explore the lovely acoustic guitar-and-mandolin duet melody, titled ‘Ikkuna’ (Window). Olli, meanwhile, pens the mammoth ‘Ikiliikkuja’ (Perpetual Motion), all six minutes and 18 seconds of it, and Polenta open their throats and sing in full voice – what a glorious sound.

Aino, Veera, Mikko and Olli are already discovering and firmly latching onto their musical path; they are the feted guardians of this proud Nordic tradition, and they even take it further by experimenting and probing the very outreaches. Mikko’s flowing but choppy guitar adds extra spice to the must-hear echoing sound of the fiddles. The CD cover shows the blurred musicians, boys and girls, abandoning the instruments in a hypnotic and happy dance; what a fantastic album, and Polenta can be well pleased with that. Here’s to the third offering!

---

AMY LAURENSON

Strands

AEL001

www.amylaurenson.com

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

Friends and companions, may I introduce you to Shetland Isles-born incredibly wonderful piano player Amy Laurenson, recently named BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2023 at the prestigious Celtic Connections festival. She studied both classical the traditional music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and graduated with a first-class Honours degree in June 2022; now Amy is a Glasgow-based lecturer in piano and traditional music at RCS Juniors and has previously taught with Fèis Rois (the World Gaelic Week) and Shetland Arts’ Folk Frenzy. In short, she is a revelation.

Her debut album, Strands, is nine spellbinding tracks of utter joy. She tours with her band Tern, appearing at the likes of Shetland Folk Festival, Edinburgh TradFest and Cambridge Folk Festival, and it’s these three marvellous musicians who accompany her – must-hear Portuguese acoustic guitarist Miguel Girão, double-bassist Rhona MacDonald and bodhràn player Rea Sondergaard Larsen, whose fabulous percussion is a thing of wonder. The whole album was recorded by Tim Matthew at Mareel in Lerwick, the most northerly music, cinema and creative industries centre which is sited right on the edge of the North Sea on the historic Hay’s Dock quayside, beside the Shetland Museum and Archives.

Miguel goes out with Amy as a regular duo, and you can hear his introductory playing in the opening track, four traditional Shetland reels, ‘Tilly Pump’, ‘Ahint da Daeks o’ Voe’, Da Scallowa Lasses’ and ‘Donald Blue’. Right from the very start, her inspiring playing firmly hooks and mesmerises the delighted crowd; uniquely brilliant and highly compelling, Amy takes them on a magic carpet ride on an emotional journey. She darts between Shetland culture and her love of Scandinavian tradition; the follow-up is the beautiful ‘Bas-Pelles Eriks Brudpolska’, a fantastic three-two tune composed by the well-known fiddler Per Westberg, born in 1886 in Tosätter, East Sweden – and before it’s time for you to catch your breath, she’s off on a merry dance again with a brace of ‘Shetland Wedding Tunes’, developing and exploring the traditional ‘Papa Stour Bridal March’ and the gay ‘Du’s Bön Lang Awa an I’m Tocht Lang ta See Dee’.

The well-loved melody ‘Da Trowie Burn’ was composed by the late Unst fiddler Friedemann Stickler, and Amy demonstrates her considerable prowess and versatility; the three-tune set ‘Up Da Stroods’ has Amy, Miguel, Rhona and Rea absolutely flying, with Ian Lowthian’s artful ‘Shetland Fiddle Diva’ and the storming ‘Up Da Stroods Da Sailor Goes’ ending in the complete finisher. Amy trips off the piano keys triumphantly, her amazing chords carry a strong whiff of heady jazz, Rea delivers top-notch bodhràn and Miguel offers up some seemingly impossible but truly mind-expanding chords.

Amy pays tribute to tunesmiths from all over the world who have made music a colourful place, including Catriona MacDonald (‘Tune For A. Llen’), Jenna Reid (Four Filskettes On A Fiesta’) fiddler and composer Alasdair Fraser (‘Tommy’s Tarbukas’) and Colin Farrell (‘Trip to Miriam’s’). Above all, James Hill’s ‘Newcastle Hornpipe’ and Garden Johnston’s ‘’Da Boys o’ Da Lounge’ must surely be Amy’s and Miguel’s party piece – stunning, crazy piano-and-guitar masterful duets astightasthis, which must have everyone and their several dogs cheering and barking madly. What magnificent artistry!

Her respect and love for the late Shetland fiddler and composer Tom Anderson shows in Tom’s desolate ‘Lament For Lowrie Ida Lea’, where she conveys passionate and mighty grand piano chords; her schooling in classical music sparked with her fiery, burning love of Shetland tradition is totally unique; may she amaze the concert crowds for a very, very long time.

---

JANUARY 2024

---

THE BLESSÈD CROW

Maiden Flight

Independent release – no catalogue number

www.facebook.com/theblessedcrow

The Blessèd Crow is father and daughter Tim and Iona Crahart from Risca, South-East Wales; Maiden Flight is their new debut album, and Tim and Iona have recorded 10 tracks at Cwmcarn’s Snake Mountain Studios, engineered by Sam Andrews and Mason Bradley. Tim wrote all the songs, and it’s a heady mixture of storytelling, folklore and some he has made up along the way, a burning sense of injustice and finger-pointing barbs against the age-old uncaring establishment.

Ions plays bodhràn and percussion, and Tim plays guitar, bouzouki, reed organ and banjo; together, they create marvellous harmonies which will please and thrill the audience. ‘Newport Rising’ is a fierce commemorative opener and reminder of the November 1839 march on Newport, where 4,000 Chartists under the leadership of John Frost poured down Stow Hill but 21 were killed in front of The Westgate Hotel by the infantry. ‘The Beekeeper’ is a cracking chorus, and ‘The Hollow Yew’ and ‘The Mystery’ deserve their places as memorable songs.

Tim’s writing turn much sharper and political as Maiden Flight progresses; ‘Highway Robbery’ is directed to the Tory Government and incredibly-Richy Sunak, and ‘Heave Ho’ celebrates the statue of slave trader and Tory MP Edward Colston being unceremoniously rolled through the streets and dumped in Bristol Harbour. Tim describes the anguish of a First World War widow, who blames ‘The King and The Kaiser’ for her lover’s death; and ‘The Pwca’ is a Celtic sprite or goblin, created by Shakespeare as Puck in The Midsummer Night’s Dream. The album finishes with the chorus song ‘Walk With You’ – what a finale, and Tim and Iona can feel very satisfied with their efforts. Well done, both!

---

RANT

Spin

Make Believe Records MBR12CD

www.rantfiddles.com

The sensational fiddling quartet RANT are scattered widely across all corners in Scotland; Bethany Reid was born in Shetland, Anna Massie and Lauren MacColl hails from the Highland peninsula of the Black Isle and Gillian Frame is on West Coast Isle of Arran. However, music studies drew them together in Glasgow in the early 2000s – and on their latest album, the foursome celebrate a decade of musical excellence by paying tribute to the bands and the inspiring players who have influenced them during their formative years.

Spin is a bold and exciting re-interpretation on every one of all 11 tracks, sounds which pricked up the ears and inquiring minds of Bethany, Anna, Lauren and Gillian. It’s a potted history of really respected musicians, both Scottish, English and from other countries across the globe; the album opens with the Capercaillie classic ‘Dr MacPhail’s Reel’, pizzicato strings heralding the tasty meat of the tune, and elegantly switches into the multi-string brainstormer ‘Hale-Bopp’, courtesy of the celebrated Finnish band JPP.  ‘Boda’ is from the English-Finnish duo Karen Tweed and Timo Alakotila, while RANT rips into the amazing Solas tunes ‘The Big Reel of BallynaCally’. The chamber-folk quartet doffs several caps to Máirtín O’Connor and Natalie MacMaster (‘The Road West’ and ‘New York Jig’). Alasdair Fraser and Tony McManus’s ‘Roslin Castle/Miss Gordon of Gight’ by Alasdair Fraser and Tony McManus, chosen by Lauren, is breathtakingly beautiful; Michael McGoldrick’s ‘James Brown’s March’ breaks out into a dazzling shower of delicious notes while the Swedish band Väsen (‘Hasse A’s’) and the brilliant Irish fiddler Liz Carroll (‘The Dadda/Fly and Dodger’) are given a whole new revealing interpretation by the quartet.

The last and final flourish is the super-fast ‘Hangman’s Reel’; Aly Bain must have cracked a wide grin when he acknowledges the masterful musicianship and the spot-on accuracy of these fiddlers. Bethany, Anna, Lauren and Gillian have taken the sound to new, soaring heights – and a legion of musical movers and shakers will stoutly and lovingly applaud them for that.

---

LAUFORD CRIPPS

Live at GBFM Nantyglo

Steam Pie Records 1020S

www.lauford.co.uk

 Wynford Jones, Laurence Eddy and Geoff Cripps first met and started playing music together at the legendary Islwyn Folk Club, ensconced in the Sirhowy Valley mining village of Ynysddu, in the late 1970s. They were one-half of the folk-rock band The Chartists, drawn together at the request of local MP Neil Kinnock to help him commemorate the Chartists’ march on Newport in 1839. The live shows in 1979 finally translated into the first release of Geoff’s independent Steam Pie label in 1981, eponymously called The Chartists, and they recorded the follow-up album entitled Cause For Complaint.

Wynford, Laurence and Geoff performed as The Chartists until 1991, but didn’t reconnect until 2022 when they began concentrating on the songs composed by Wynford. The chance meeting with Daniel James at an open mic in Crickhowell last year led to his inviting them to perform on his folk programme on local community radio station GBfm, based in Banna Park in Nantyglo. It produced Lauford Cripps’ debut album and the first Steam Pie release in seven years, after Allan Yn Y Fan’s full-length offering Newid in 2016.

Daniel recorded Live at GBfm Nantyglo and he and Wynford produced the nine-track album. Lauford Cripps possesses what must be described as the complete South Wales string sound, with Wynford delivering gruff but passionate lead vocals and performing guitar and mandola, Laurence supplying guitar and harmony vocals and Geoff adding accompaniment on bass guitar, octave mandola, guitar and bouzouki. Wynford composed all six songs, except for Ewan MacColl’s ‘School Days Over’ and the traditional ‘Eerie Canal’; however, the greatest and worst disaster happened in 1913 in the mining village of Senghenydd, when a record 439 miners and one rescuer were killed at the Universal Colliery, near Caerphilly. Everyone lost loved ones and young sons; it left 542 children fatherless made widows of more than 200 women, and 90 boys and young men aged 20 or less were slaughtered, with the youngest being just 14 years old. But any accounts or ballads which told of the disaster disappeared or were just not there; so Wynford decided to write a song, ‘The Universal’, a tribute echoing through all those years.

However, just prior to releasing this album, Laurence decided to part company with Wynford and Geoff, but the record commemorates his contribution. Steam Pie Records says that Wynford and Geoff will carry on as a duo and songs of this album will feature strongly in their performances.

---

NORTHERN RESONANCE

Vision of Three

Trad Records TRAD029

www.northernresonance.se

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

Northern Resonance are an exciting and stunning Scandinavian string trio, based in Järvsö in Sweden; they release their second and latest album on January 19, and they are embarking on their first Australian tour. The personnel are highly skilled and accomplished musicians, rooted in traditional music; Anna Ekborg Hans-Ers performs with her principal instrument, the viola d’amore, Petrus Dillner on the beautiful and strikingly visual nyckelharpa and hardanger fiddler Jerker Hans-Ers. The band was created in the autumn of 2017, when Anna hit on the notion about forming an unlikely combination of viola d’amore, hardanger fiddler and nyckelharpa, which was a previously untested combination. She pitched the idea to Jerker and Petrus – and so the breath-taking and super-individual mesmeric sound of Northern Resonance was born.

This is an album to really savour and enjoy. Anna, Jerker and Petrus daringly compose all the 10 original tracks, from the opening gay chimes of ‘Fasterud’, through the lilting rhythms of ‘The Quarantine Waltz’ and the busy cascade of notes of ‘F*ck That Car’, concluding with the grand elegant closer ‘Nobody’s Marsch’. Just listen to the gorgeous ringing atmosphere of ‘Brittas Polska’ and marvel to the tumbling shower of bright tones; in ‘Route 83’, the nyckelharpa weaves, ducks and dives through a wonderland of melody.

Northern Resonance are very eloquently dancing on a high-wire between traditional  folk music and brilliant innovation; they have forged what amounts to an utterly unique soundscape. I can thoroughly recommend Vision of Three. Anna, Petrus and Jerker have invented a new listening experience; they produce great life in all their tunes, and the trio know how to bring out that definable magic. My dream is that some enterprising agent will organise a Welsh, English and Scottish tour before too long.

---

MICK’S QUICKS

► Penetrating Scottish singer-songwriter Colin Macduff has created his second album concerning 12 songs of parting, lost loves and relationship break-ups called Separations (Independent release, CNM20231). As well as solo acoustic guitar, the crafted lyrics and fine melodies include three piano-based tracks co-written and arranged by Maria Quinn; it was produced by Blazing Fiddles’ Angus Lyon and features the fiddling of his bandmate Jenna Reid. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► From the family-run music pub on Clare Island, County Mayo, to Music City in Nashville, Tennessee, Irish strong-voiced singer and acoustic guitarist/banjo player Niall McCabe has developed his own individual style with some wonderful songwriting, partly led by Irish and Americana influences, in his impressive solo debut album Rituals (Graggy label, no natalogue number). From ‘Stonemason’ to ‘November Swell’, the stirring but delicate sound is really pleasing; the final song, ‘Valhalla’, draws greatly of the Mayo culture. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Mesmerising and oh-so-fiery songwriter Alun Parry has made his triumphant return to the stage after five years away; his Bandcamp digital album, Speak Easy, Sing Hard (no catalogue number) is packed with 22 live tracks, performing with his band in front of a crowd at the Prohibition Studio in Arrad Street in his home city of Liverpool. It’s a ‘Best-Of’ list, including for starters ‘The Football Song’, the favourite ‘I Want Rosa To Stay’, the Spanish fascist era true story ‘The Train From Barcelona’, We Can Make The World Stop’ and finally the rousing ‘The Internationale’. Great, stand-up-and-be-counted stuff. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Glasgow-based harpist and enchanting singer Gillian Fleetwood has independently released a wonderful cross-genre 13-track album called Together With Yourself At Sea Level (no catalogue number), in collaboration with Mercury Award nominee and multiple Scottish Album Of The Year nominated composer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist C Duncan. Gillian plays a 210-year-old Erard Grecian harp, housed at the Hospitalfield House arts centre in Arbroath, and she blends chamber pop and Scottish traditional influences to magical and stunning effect. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► Americana singer/songwriter/acoustic guitarist Alice Di Micele has released 16 near-original albums since 1988, but this New Jersey-born turned Oregon resident has recorded her 17^th offering, Interpretations Vol 1 (Alice Otter Music, AO117), which she tributes songsmiths including Neil Young, Kate Wolf, Reverend Gary Davis, Christine MacVie, The Grateful Dead and Sting. She serves up a heady mix of folk, jazz and blues that not inspires and entertains as well. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

► South West England-based Luke Philbrick & The Solid Gone Invasion’s eponymous album (independently released, no catalogue number) storms through blues, jazz and folk genres with saxophone, clarinet, banjo, harp, violin and mandolin included, but these 12 tracks do not float my boat in the slightest little bit; Luke possesses a ear-pounding chain-saw of a voice and the more he shouts, the more his lyrics become unintelligible. Sorry, but no. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs down

---

MARTYN JOSEPH

This Is What I Want To Say

Pipe Records PRCD039

www.martynjoseph.net

***** FIVE STAR CHOICE! *****

My admiration and complete respect for guitarist, singer and prolific songwriter Martyn Joseph knows no bounds. His musical career has spanned an incredible 40 years, and he conjures a unique and magical performance that is mind-blowingly unforgettable; whether he’s playing for a couple of hundred packed-out people in his home town in Penarth or thousands of delighted fans on a worldwide tour, Martyn always delivers the goods and comes up trumps without question. His impressive recording prospectus lists 27 studio albums, including his self-released debut offering I’m Only Beginning in 1983, 15 live collections and a plethora of EPs, compilations and collaborations. And to crown his achievements, he won the best artist category in the BBC Welsh Music Awards.

For all his eloquent, incisive and ear-bending melodious songcraft, his first release of the New Year stamps the seven-word label that firmly lays down the questions and answers, the injustices and the callous corporate scandals, the hopes and the fears that are churning and tumbling in his mind. This Is What I Want To Say is quietly introspective and is remarkedly different; Martyn selects a handful of accompanists and performs on his dazzlingly intricate acoustic guitar, pump organ, piano, bass, dobro and chimes. The first track – ‘Folding’, with cellist Liz Hanks enhancing the sound – he depicts the fragile relationship between the artist and the fickle public: “I’m folding like a kite that’s lost in the wind / I’m holding to the remnant of these sins / To a vast goodbye a small hello / I’m folding, folding slow.”

He professes his wonder and love for the mountains and coast in ‘Pacific Northwest’ and his absolute certainty that the musician is not alone: “We are the hope, we are the ones / And we stand in the light of a thousand suns.” Bassist Andrew ‘Wal’ Coughlan and pianist Nigel Hopkins accompany ‘Albert’s Place’, which describes the harsh, hopeless poverty of the 13-year reign of austerity and the comforting gestures of compassion; and the atmosphere relentlessly builds up in ‘Grateful’: “I’m grateful for the Thomas boy, his epic habitat / The song of Polly Garter and the dreams of Captain Cat.” In ‘Take Me To Love’, Martyn duets with German-American songwriter Antje Duvekot; and in ‘Waiting For The Rain’, hiraeth invokes the meaning of a sense of place and belonging, verses which imagine a new kind of home in Wales for those forced their home in Syria: “Let Cymraeg chime with Arabic to form a new dialect / May your children grow secured and sutured to the land.” ‘You’re Still Here’ is a tribute of love for those who constantly travel with the artist, and the final single-stanza song ‘Without You’ succinctly wraps up the meaning of true togetherness: “And the day won’t be right / Without you.”

There can be no doubt about it: with a sizable armful of albums which represent the best part of Martin’s breath-taking career, this seven-word title is likely to be the key to his thoughts, hopes and desires to shape and mould the world into a better and fairer place to live. I very much hope so, and I hope you will too – it’s an absolute corker of a gem.

 

---

Reviews for 2023 and earlier have now been archived and can be found on the CD Reviews Archive (from 2020) page