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| Track list: 1. Working on the new railroad - Greg Russell & Ciaran Algar 2. St. Andrew's flight/Last tango in Harris - Thalla 3. More than boys - Luke Jackson 4. Father Eugene's welcome to Cape North/St Kilda's wedding - Graham Mackenzie & Ciorstaidh Beaton 5. Shiver - Mae Bradbury 6. Breaking of old branches - Jack Pout 7. Were you at the rock?/The college groves - Matt Tighe 8. Liverpool lullaby - Rosie Hodgson 9. My heart is holding up a shield - The Crosstown Trio 10. The night before - Hugh Sheehan & Jack McCaugherty Running time: 41 minutes Released: 2013 |
Another track title/artist combo that completely breaks the formatting of my blog unless I alter my pattern of putting the track list into a caption for the cover image. Ah well, as no-one is reading it can afford to look stupid, and I have not the time or care to learn enough HTML and/or CSS to sort it out or find a better way to deal with listing this information. Maybe if I am still doing this in a year it will have bothered me enough by then?
2013 has definitely been the best of the Folk Awards years to date and has lead to a spurt of purchases as it uncovered Anaïs Mitchell and Kathryn Roberts' voice. This third disc though has nothing that is even slightly familiar to me so I am more than a little unsure what I am going to get. The first effort is a formulaic song that falls very flat for me, only coming alive late on when the fiddle picks up more. The singing is passable at best and the guitar strumming away is bland and devoid of distinction. When the tune really takes flight it gets rather decent, but to enjoy that you have to endure 3 minutes or more of blah. Not a positive start.
The next pair of tunes starts more promisingly though - airy, expansive. The high pitched pipe is a little too close to squeaking its way through the tune, but the simple structure provided by the other instrumentation gives a sense of space. It reminds me a bit of Afro Celt Sound System. At no point are these tunes really stellar or even particularly stand out, but they craft the sound well to give an open sense to things. They could definitely do with being shorter though - the disc already feels like it has been playing forever and I am only one fifth through in terms of tracks. I am more hopeful of enjoying Luke Jackson's effort, since I kept his tune from disc 2. Why he gets two entries... who cares. His singing is a definite high point, the playing is functional and the song is not the worst. Damning with faint praise overall if you take the sentence at face value and in this instance I think that is fair. Unlike on disc 2 where he vocal had more than a hint of Chris Wood's gravitas, here it is merely good, less weighty. Then we get to the primary offender for the template-breaking badness. It starts nicely enough as a fiddle tune, accompanied by harp it appears. The harp is a little too sharp in places but the tune is nice enough and I do like the fiddle playing here, it has a warmth to it. The second tune trades more on the harp and again it seems a little too stark at points but once it flattens out it is also plenty listenable.
Better than generic guitar, at least. Where Mitchell intrigued me with her playing and got me over the hurdle of guitar noodleing as poor entertainment mindset that I have found myself taking a lot recently, Mae Bradbury does not stack up. I do rather like her voice and I am amused by the tale spun in the song so I can look past the less than endearing approach. She reminds me of someone... I think maybe an English Ani DiFranco in terms of delivery. The song goes by fairly fast and we're staying in noodle-land for the next song and here it is far more of a problem for me with less of interest about the performance or the song. I guess I am of the opinion that whilst, as Thom Yorke rightly sang, anyone can play guitar, you actually have to be really good to make fiddling about with one on your own interesting in and of itself.
Solo fiddle piece eh? A nearly man, I think. There are flashes of interest here but the strongest ones simply give me aural flashbacks to Jon Boden, and I keep expecting Squeezy's to start up any second. Overall I feel there is a lack of depth to the sound of these pieces and that leaves the fiddle squawking by itself against a vacuum that makes every harsh edge magnify to unpleasantness. A pity, but goodbye Matt Tighe. Rosie Hodgson sounds like a less angelic Kate Rusby, the odd word here or there carries a carbon copy inflection and the rhythm of the lines is also very reminiscent. There is a significant artefact or two of the rip here which spoil it further, but ultimately it is noodle-like and not as good as Rusby. It feels like an imitation and one that I do not need to keep. Crosstown Trio are more promising, mandolin or ukulele replacing guitar, but the tune is made by the nice backing harmony on the chorus and the little bit of depth added by having another set of strings at a different pitch. Another stutter from the rip near the end and that is getting to be a serious annoyance with this disc, but the song is interesting enough to keep and I have hopes for the final tunes based on their intro. Some form of squeezebox and guitar, very reminiscent of a John Spiers tune, particularly with the little stutters (from the organ this time) of quick repeated notes. This is a positive way to bring the disc and the 2013 awards set to a close. Only one more to go; I can then get back to crediting or slagging artists and groups on the basis of more than one track. Hurrah!
2013 has definitely been the best of the Folk Awards years to date and has lead to a spurt of purchases as it uncovered Anaïs Mitchell and Kathryn Roberts' voice. This third disc though has nothing that is even slightly familiar to me so I am more than a little unsure what I am going to get. The first effort is a formulaic song that falls very flat for me, only coming alive late on when the fiddle picks up more. The singing is passable at best and the guitar strumming away is bland and devoid of distinction. When the tune really takes flight it gets rather decent, but to enjoy that you have to endure 3 minutes or more of blah. Not a positive start.
The next pair of tunes starts more promisingly though - airy, expansive. The high pitched pipe is a little too close to squeaking its way through the tune, but the simple structure provided by the other instrumentation gives a sense of space. It reminds me a bit of Afro Celt Sound System. At no point are these tunes really stellar or even particularly stand out, but they craft the sound well to give an open sense to things. They could definitely do with being shorter though - the disc already feels like it has been playing forever and I am only one fifth through in terms of tracks. I am more hopeful of enjoying Luke Jackson's effort, since I kept his tune from disc 2. Why he gets two entries... who cares. His singing is a definite high point, the playing is functional and the song is not the worst. Damning with faint praise overall if you take the sentence at face value and in this instance I think that is fair. Unlike on disc 2 where he vocal had more than a hint of Chris Wood's gravitas, here it is merely good, less weighty. Then we get to the primary offender for the template-breaking badness. It starts nicely enough as a fiddle tune, accompanied by harp it appears. The harp is a little too sharp in places but the tune is nice enough and I do like the fiddle playing here, it has a warmth to it. The second tune trades more on the harp and again it seems a little too stark at points but once it flattens out it is also plenty listenable.
Better than generic guitar, at least. Where Mitchell intrigued me with her playing and got me over the hurdle of guitar noodleing as poor entertainment mindset that I have found myself taking a lot recently, Mae Bradbury does not stack up. I do rather like her voice and I am amused by the tale spun in the song so I can look past the less than endearing approach. She reminds me of someone... I think maybe an English Ani DiFranco in terms of delivery. The song goes by fairly fast and we're staying in noodle-land for the next song and here it is far more of a problem for me with less of interest about the performance or the song. I guess I am of the opinion that whilst, as Thom Yorke rightly sang, anyone can play guitar, you actually have to be really good to make fiddling about with one on your own interesting in and of itself.
Solo fiddle piece eh? A nearly man, I think. There are flashes of interest here but the strongest ones simply give me aural flashbacks to Jon Boden, and I keep expecting Squeezy's to start up any second. Overall I feel there is a lack of depth to the sound of these pieces and that leaves the fiddle squawking by itself against a vacuum that makes every harsh edge magnify to unpleasantness. A pity, but goodbye Matt Tighe. Rosie Hodgson sounds like a less angelic Kate Rusby, the odd word here or there carries a carbon copy inflection and the rhythm of the lines is also very reminiscent. There is a significant artefact or two of the rip here which spoil it further, but ultimately it is noodle-like and not as good as Rusby. It feels like an imitation and one that I do not need to keep. Crosstown Trio are more promising, mandolin or ukulele replacing guitar, but the tune is made by the nice backing harmony on the chorus and the little bit of depth added by having another set of strings at a different pitch. Another stutter from the rip near the end and that is getting to be a serious annoyance with this disc, but the song is interesting enough to keep and I have hopes for the final tunes based on their intro. Some form of squeezebox and guitar, very reminiscent of a John Spiers tune, particularly with the little stutters (from the organ this time) of quick repeated notes. This is a positive way to bring the disc and the 2013 awards set to a close. Only one more to go; I can then get back to crediting or slagging artists and groups on the basis of more than one track. Hurrah!
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