anyone for folk-lite or maybe something more substantial?
pete lawrence on bellowhead
The Independent recently carried an article about London spawning a new family of multi-instrumentalists and singers who support and play with each other. "Just don’t call it a scene" says the writer Tim Walker, which is always the right sort of enigmatic comment to make to drive interest towards a scene actually being created. His real or imagined scene includes Emmy The Great, Noah and the Whale, Johnny Flynn, Mumford and Sons and others who are carving a new strand, well away from the more traditional folk world. "Folk-lite" has been used more than once as a tag to describe what clearly is an emerging scene, which clubs / events like The Local and others have been championing for several years now, though anything described as "lite" usually sounds the alarm bells for me, and the artists mentioned are deserving of better.
Away from London - throughout the shires of England and into the Celtic countries - there is an equally vibrant, more traditional strand of modern folk, with the likes of Bellowhead, Maukin Causley, Jim Moray, Kate Rusby, Seth Lakeman, Demon Barbers, Spiers and Boden, Jackie Oates, The Shee, Gloworms, - most of whom are only in their 20s. Jim Moray's album 'Low Culture' is rarely off my decks and seems to be getting the critical and word-of-mouth thumbs up which it richly deserves. It includes a fine cover of XTC's 'All You Pretty Girls' which oddly won the 'Best Original Song' award at this month's Folk Awards.
Arguably the most exciting of them all are the 11 piece Bellowhead, a big bold and brassy ensemble who encapsulate all that is exciting about English music today, building from a bedrock of traditional folk song and dance, and taking their arrangements into unchartered waters, combining a warped English sensibility with a pan-global palate, adding a touch of the music hall burlesque. A heady musical palate which effortlessly underscores their complex arrangements.
They are at their quintessential best on the live stage, and the live show is well represented on a new DVD, 'Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire' which is one of the best produced music DVDs that I've had the pleasure of watching in recent years. Its excellent mix enables the complexity and power of the sound to thrive while the camera work is lively, capturing in close up the interplay between musicians and the energy surges in the crowd. The content of the DVD is mostly based around their set of eighteen months ago (it's now even better!), taken from their debut album 'Burlesque', and offering an alternative view to Ben Mandelson's album production. Highlights include the rousing 'If You Will Not Have Me, You May Let Me Go' a dance tune with a haunting melody that has energy in spades, and 'Death and The Lady' a traditional song about a conversation between the grim reaper and a young maiden. The band clearly dig deep with musical influences from Brazilian Milton Nascimento through Vaughan Williams to the Norfolk trad folk singer Peter Bellamy and they also notate the sources of their own tunes in some detail on their album sleeves, which makes for fascinating reading.
Bellowhead were clearly at pains to avoid the behemoth that is ‘folk rock’, and their starting point of building Pete Flood's stand-up percussion kit around taxi horns, cutlery holders, frying pan, glockenspiel and all manner of assorted curios alongside a tuba / helicon bass (instead of bass guitar) immediately sends out a clear message that this band don't play by the rules. Clearly the love of the traditional runs deep, with co-founder and melodeon player John 'Squeezy' Spiers having come to folk through a morris dance family upbringing. His playing is nowhere better demonstrated than on the ‘Sloe Gin’ medley of tunes, played in an East Anglian step dancing tradition, which Spiers kicks off with his own William Kimber-like angular tune 'Frozen Gin' on the melodeon. If ever there was an example of how funky a melodeon and trombone playing a morris dance tune can be, unlikely as it sounds, then this loping delight is it.
The essence of Bellowhead is their sense of fun which comes through in the energy of their live performance, without compromising the gravitas of their musical creativity, which effortlessly straddles folk and jazz (three of the horn and rhythm section are members of Setsubun Bean Unit on Matt Herbert's Accidental label). I booked the band to play at The Big Chill festival several years back after the release of their first EP, and missed that performance, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer exuberance about to hit me as I entered Northampton's slightly dingy Roadmender venue last November to finally witness the live Bellowhead spactacle. If there was a perfect live performance last year, this was pretty much it. After queueing outside for half an hour in pouring rain before the venue deemed to open the doors, the whole crowd was definitely up for it once inside, and the fact that we all started literally steaming as we dried out and warmed up was merely a pre-cursor to a high octane, adrenalin-fuelled night in what is basically a 700 capacity, standing-only black room with a high stage and an awesome PA / sound mix. My parting memory was being in a crowd of all ages, collectively pogoing for all we were worth to a rousing 'Frog's Legs and Dragon's Teeth' finale.
Check this band out if you haven't already. I can't think of anyone more on the zeitgeist right now.
Bellowhead play Leamington Spa Assembly, one of the country’s best venues, on Saturday October 24th as part of a UK autumn tour. Their latest album 'Matachin' is available on Navigator Records.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
