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| Track list: 1. Willie of Winsbury - Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer 2. Hi Ho Ro Tha Mi Duilich - Breabach 3. A Cut Above / The Hesleyside Reel - Will Pound 4. Whiskey You're The Devil - Bella Hardy 5. Delta Dreams - Martin Simpson 6. Anyone But Me - Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker 7. Mary Macdonald's - Rant 8. Love's For Babies and Fools - Linda Thompson 9. Man In The Moon - The Full English 10. Les Bras de Mer - Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita 11. Fifty Verses - Melrose Quartet 12. Throwing Pennies - Lau 13. Marching Through The Green Grass - Lucy Ward 14. None the Wiser - Chris Wood 15. The Battered Hake Polka / Jack's Maggot - Hannah James & Sam Sweeney 16. Codi Angor - Georgia Ruth 17. The Nailmakers' Strike Part II - Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin 18. Hotline - Aidan O'Rourke 19. Swimming In The Longest River - Olivia Chaney 20. The Queen's Lover - Greg Russell & Ciaran Algar 21. Two Ravens - Lisa Knapp 22. Full Moon - Ross Ainslie & Jarlath Henderson 23. The Weaver's Daughter - Fay Hield 24. This Is Getting Old - Gentlemen of Few 25. Leanabh An Oir - Mischa MacPherson Trio 26. All For Me Grog - Granny's Attic 27. Tilly's Song - Hattie Briggs Running time: 118 minutes Released: 2014 |
Dear lord, 118 minutes in one go? Well, it is the last of these to go through and there are a few gems on here, I am sure, even if I turn out to have them elsewhere already.
More of a mission was getting the image and track listing together. I had to save and resize the image because no suitable ones showed up, whilst I had to manually compile the track list in 2 respects: 1 because everywhere online has this as two separate discs yet what I have clearly isn't - it is numbered consecutively - and 2 because the lists available were all borked somehow. Nervermind, eh? And, 3 - I have just dug out my physical disc to find I, too, have 2 discs, and that there are indeed 4 bonus tracks that are not in my library from Young Folk Award nominees. What a palava; they are added to the end of it.
I should really split this up because there's no way in the world I am going to manage a 2-hour stint at this but... I can always split it out into 2 sessions but maintain it as one post. I think what must have happened is that I bought this online and got the digital copy that way rather than by ripping the discs but never mind. Lets get underway.
We start with a song that has featured before (on At Llangennith), by an artist who I only discovered on the 2013 collection, but have since bought lots of, including the album of Child Ballads that this comes from. A nice modern and unique take on traditional folk songs, I have immediately fallen for it, and put several onto my playlist for the Albion game (actual play logs for as long as I maintain them here). I have to say that I prefer Charlotte Greig's version but that is probably 99% familiarity and expectation rather than based on comparison of the relative merits. Anaïs Mitchell has been a very welcome find - something about the way she sculpts very simple arrangements yet plays them in a compelling way really strikes a tone with me. Anyway, this is now a duplicate so will get dumped in favour of the album version but it is a nice start to this epic. It is replaced, after a rather sudden end, by a Gaelic song. I recognise Breabach as a name from a previous year's awards but despite it being obvious from the name that this would be Gaelic, I had in my head it was more likely to be tunes than a song - probably horribly conflating memories of the last Breabach tune I listened to with some other group. This distraction means that I do not fully appreciate the song as it plays, and when I do stop to appreciate it the song disappoints lacking sparkle and shine. Perfectly functional, not much more.
It is replaced by a whimsical tune that for some reason reminds me of the theme to the old BBC sitcom Allo Allo for no particular reason (there really is not a lot of similarity there), but it is enough for me not to take it seriously and not want to retain it. Whimsy and Sunday early evening sitcom associations place it too much in the stereotyped view of folk music for me to enjoy and so I cast my eyes ahead and see that Bella Hardy is up next. This could be interesting. I have her debut album and have written before how I preferred Jim Moray's cover of Three Black Feathers to her original, but if she has grown as a performer in the intervening years then her music could potentially interest me again... and I do like a drop of whiskey. The singing is stronger than I recall of her, definitely sounding older and wiser, but the music that accompanies the song is uninteresting bordering on actively annoying and actually the song is just too much repetition to hold the attention. I won't be following up any new interest at this point, then. Another familiar name pops up next, another expected disappointment. I rambled about noodling with a guitar last time out, and whilst Simpson has been doing it for a long long time with a degree of distinction, his style and his songs fall flat for me and I cannot help but feel that there is something slightly off with Britons singing about the US in the way he does here. I do not mean that they shouldn't or can't, but... OK. Mitchell was singing traditional British songs, but whilst they are rooted here, they are not about here - the songs in many of those Ballads could describe stories anywhere. Simpson's song could only be about its place and it throws me some. Cognitive dissonance, perhaps. I dunno. In any case, I did not like it much and now I am listening to someone I do not know of singing a song that means nothing to me. Ah, discovery.
It is a simple melody but nicely put together; the song leaves a little to be desired but the playing and the ampitheatre created for the vocal performance are pretty swell, dramatic and enjoyable. A keeper, then.
I find the idea of a band called Rant amusing and would expect them to play angry music (and channeled fury is a good creative spark). Alas that does not appear to be the case. There is a nice fiddle melody here instead, but the tune suffers from the feeling that it never really gets going. Several times it threatens to jump into a much more vibrant life but each time it pulls back from that threat, limping home meekly instead. When it finally gets an injection of pace it improves for me... still not as urgent or demanding as it could be, and the life it gets is soon diverted elsewhere giving the impression of a catalogue of smaller tunes stitched together as if to build a reel but yet all composed under one banner. It is ultimately disappointing. Linda Thompson is found elsewhere in my library but to be honest I have listened to her 32 times in 7 years so I suspect most of it is for the chop. This song is a little too slow, low and sleepy for me; whilst the tune is pleasant enough it is never more than that.
Is it time for breakfast? No? Got my hopes up for a Full English but alas there is nothing about this one that appeals, proof that Sam Sweeney cannot save everything (though I don't know if he actually played on this piece). Its a little too oldy-worldy in style for me, and the same could perhaps be said of the harping that follows it. The percussion here is very faint leaving the harp to stand out well but it all feels a little ecclesiastical, clerical, hymnal. Like it should be playing in a church before a service that no-one will attend, or at least in some kind of small exhibit somewhere. Its perfectly nice, but nice is not enough at this stage and for the love of Dog it goes on for 8 minutes. If I was ranting before about guitar noodling, this is definitely the harpists' equivalent. When it finally ends a promising guitar hook steps in, a nice fiddle joins it; if this builds then it could be good. However it holds its form instead; the singing that joins in is not bad, but the accordion adds nothing and musically it feels like a meander rather than a rushing flow. Pretty, yes, but not exciting; the harmonies a high point that save it.
Lau crop up again next - I think this was the last song on the two disc split. I feel like I recognise this song and looking it up it looks as though it comes from the one Lau album I have (Race the Loser). I cannot say this one appeals much, slow and sad without any magic to lift it into the mournful masterpiece category. It feels like a long trudge home after a bad day at work, which is not exactly a positive experience.
Pace! Stridency! Bit more rhythm, bit more life. We're marching on and whilst musically the interest is pretty thin, the extra energy and the harder edge to Lucy Ward's voice here make it noticeably more compelling than anything on this album to date and might actually be enough to have me look her up. Young energetic folk, that's what we want. Chris Wood next, an odd little song that sounds like it is decrying much of modern life - specifically the economics of the 2010s to date - and whilst I have a lot of sympathy with that point of view the song itself is no more than so-so. Its wry sideswipe is not enough to overcome the surprisingly bland delivery and composition.
Sam Sweeney pops up again, this time carrying a fiddle tune that is much more typical of his fare, a bit more lively yet still tuneful and crafty. What confuses me, though, is that this song is on the same album as The Farmer's Cursed Wife which appears on the 2013 folk awards album (disc 1). Actually I think that applies to the Lau track too. Really BBC Folk Awards - there wasn't enough good stuff for you to pick out from 2014 without repeat visits? For shame!
Next up another non-English song; Welsh this time, a song of the sea I think (a translation of the title gives "Raising Anchor"). Not enough to keep me interested. There follows a weird bluesy number - is that a mouth organ? - that had its plus points but frankly is a little lacking in power and venom for a protest song. Quite a nice change up from what has been before, yes, but a little odd in the process. Hotline starts with a radio broadcast that pertains to atomic something... certainly not something I would expect in a folk song but an intriguing opening to a piece. The tune that comes in as the radio is faded out is a bit sparse and not really in keeping with the tone of the words it replaced and frankly after 3 minutes has not gone anywhere. The same central theme repeated again and again with slight variations. It can work, but there is not enough to it here to make that an interesting pattern. Of course, as I start to type that the tune gets a bit more depth, and then a sax cuts in to make the whole thing feel a little more like a jazz improv piece. I am not at all anti-jazz but this is incongruous in the extreme and in all honesty it just strikes me as a mess and not very good.
At this point I realise how far through I am, and resolve to go to the end; I am on holiday this week after all and the late night will not be that detrimental. There is one gem to come, but are there more?
Track 19 is a song with piano backing, and the singer is alright but nothing special whilst the tune is functional but not outstanding. Too bland for me. The same may well go for the following number actually, only here the singing is less than alright for my tastes, a bit of an edge in his voice that puts me off even before the dreary song and tune are taken into account. At least now I get the gem. Lisa Knapp enchants me - there is difference here. Her ethereal tones and non-standard song construction make this a compelling tale even without it really ever taking off like the birds it describes.
Another eight minute epic to slog through now - and whilst I have just committed myself to doing the whole lot in one go tonight it suddenly feels like a slog in truth. Pipes and guitars, twee tunes, generic highlands image montage mode engaged. That is a little unfair, perhaps but it is what goes through my mind - I feel like it could be a tune from an episode of Hamish Macbeth or Monarch of the Glen and there are a couple of points where this really shines out, recesses in the music which feel almost designed to be filled in by a visual. About 4 minutes in it starts going full on pipe reel but it all feels distant, impersonal somehow, and it fails to engage me. I am looking down the track list and of the tracks so far I am retaining 10%, just two. I would also have kept Lucy Ward's but I have just ordered the album it came from so...
Fay Hield may be married to one of my favourite musicians but her material leaves me cold. I say that based on two tracks - this one and the the one on disc 2 of 2013. I find her voice flat and the arrangement cold here and it is enough for me not to want to explore any more.
Finally we are into the Young Musician nominees, get through these and I can leave the folk awards behind forever as if nothing else the last couple of weeks have taught me that whilst I probably do want to scan through the nominees because I have stumbled on undiscovered gold, buying the discs is not a good investment overall. The first of 4 tracks from the young'uns is a raucous number calling to mind images of hill-billies whilst being boring. Energy is good, but it is not sufficient for interest on its own. The contrast with the second track is significant, another Gaelic number with very sparse support. The singer's voice sounds fragile, unsure, but at the same time that frailty gives it a human warmth that makes me smile wistfully. The song does feel too long because there really isn't much there to support the singer and the phrasing is drawn out, but other than that it is a nice number. Granny's Attic as a name and a drinking song are not necessarily what I would expect from a young folk nominee but well... that's what I have got. It is not as loud and leery as I would have anticipated and actually it suffers for that. Not interesting enough. And so to the final song of this marathon... fittingly it ends in a puff of nothing, for this has been a particularly bad collection. Between frumpy old-sounding material and re-use of the prior year's releases I think this should draw a line under my desire to buy any more BBC Folk Awards albums. The final count is 3 of 27 kept, with an honourable mention for one more that triggered a purchase; that is a poor return.
I can now look ahead, but not too far. I'll have another string of "very similar" stuff to wade through within B as I hit first a load of Ben Folds (Five/Live) and then the Big Box of John Lee Hooker - six discs with 20 tracks each. B is turning out to be pretty hard work.
We start with a song that has featured before (on At Llangennith), by an artist who I only discovered on the 2013 collection, but have since bought lots of, including the album of Child Ballads that this comes from. A nice modern and unique take on traditional folk songs, I have immediately fallen for it, and put several onto my playlist for the Albion game (actual play logs for as long as I maintain them here). I have to say that I prefer Charlotte Greig's version but that is probably 99% familiarity and expectation rather than based on comparison of the relative merits. Anaïs Mitchell has been a very welcome find - something about the way she sculpts very simple arrangements yet plays them in a compelling way really strikes a tone with me. Anyway, this is now a duplicate so will get dumped in favour of the album version but it is a nice start to this epic. It is replaced, after a rather sudden end, by a Gaelic song. I recognise Breabach as a name from a previous year's awards but despite it being obvious from the name that this would be Gaelic, I had in my head it was more likely to be tunes than a song - probably horribly conflating memories of the last Breabach tune I listened to with some other group. This distraction means that I do not fully appreciate the song as it plays, and when I do stop to appreciate it the song disappoints lacking sparkle and shine. Perfectly functional, not much more.
It is replaced by a whimsical tune that for some reason reminds me of the theme to the old BBC sitcom Allo Allo for no particular reason (there really is not a lot of similarity there), but it is enough for me not to take it seriously and not want to retain it. Whimsy and Sunday early evening sitcom associations place it too much in the stereotyped view of folk music for me to enjoy and so I cast my eyes ahead and see that Bella Hardy is up next. This could be interesting. I have her debut album and have written before how I preferred Jim Moray's cover of Three Black Feathers to her original, but if she has grown as a performer in the intervening years then her music could potentially interest me again... and I do like a drop of whiskey. The singing is stronger than I recall of her, definitely sounding older and wiser, but the music that accompanies the song is uninteresting bordering on actively annoying and actually the song is just too much repetition to hold the attention. I won't be following up any new interest at this point, then. Another familiar name pops up next, another expected disappointment. I rambled about noodling with a guitar last time out, and whilst Simpson has been doing it for a long long time with a degree of distinction, his style and his songs fall flat for me and I cannot help but feel that there is something slightly off with Britons singing about the US in the way he does here. I do not mean that they shouldn't or can't, but... OK. Mitchell was singing traditional British songs, but whilst they are rooted here, they are not about here - the songs in many of those Ballads could describe stories anywhere. Simpson's song could only be about its place and it throws me some. Cognitive dissonance, perhaps. I dunno. In any case, I did not like it much and now I am listening to someone I do not know of singing a song that means nothing to me. Ah, discovery.
It is a simple melody but nicely put together; the song leaves a little to be desired but the playing and the ampitheatre created for the vocal performance are pretty swell, dramatic and enjoyable. A keeper, then.
I find the idea of a band called Rant amusing and would expect them to play angry music (and channeled fury is a good creative spark). Alas that does not appear to be the case. There is a nice fiddle melody here instead, but the tune suffers from the feeling that it never really gets going. Several times it threatens to jump into a much more vibrant life but each time it pulls back from that threat, limping home meekly instead. When it finally gets an injection of pace it improves for me... still not as urgent or demanding as it could be, and the life it gets is soon diverted elsewhere giving the impression of a catalogue of smaller tunes stitched together as if to build a reel but yet all composed under one banner. It is ultimately disappointing. Linda Thompson is found elsewhere in my library but to be honest I have listened to her 32 times in 7 years so I suspect most of it is for the chop. This song is a little too slow, low and sleepy for me; whilst the tune is pleasant enough it is never more than that.
Is it time for breakfast? No? Got my hopes up for a Full English but alas there is nothing about this one that appeals, proof that Sam Sweeney cannot save everything (though I don't know if he actually played on this piece). Its a little too oldy-worldy in style for me, and the same could perhaps be said of the harping that follows it. The percussion here is very faint leaving the harp to stand out well but it all feels a little ecclesiastical, clerical, hymnal. Like it should be playing in a church before a service that no-one will attend, or at least in some kind of small exhibit somewhere. Its perfectly nice, but nice is not enough at this stage and for the love of Dog it goes on for 8 minutes. If I was ranting before about guitar noodling, this is definitely the harpists' equivalent. When it finally ends a promising guitar hook steps in, a nice fiddle joins it; if this builds then it could be good. However it holds its form instead; the singing that joins in is not bad, but the accordion adds nothing and musically it feels like a meander rather than a rushing flow. Pretty, yes, but not exciting; the harmonies a high point that save it.
Lau crop up again next - I think this was the last song on the two disc split. I feel like I recognise this song and looking it up it looks as though it comes from the one Lau album I have (Race the Loser). I cannot say this one appeals much, slow and sad without any magic to lift it into the mournful masterpiece category. It feels like a long trudge home after a bad day at work, which is not exactly a positive experience.
Pace! Stridency! Bit more rhythm, bit more life. We're marching on and whilst musically the interest is pretty thin, the extra energy and the harder edge to Lucy Ward's voice here make it noticeably more compelling than anything on this album to date and might actually be enough to have me look her up. Young energetic folk, that's what we want. Chris Wood next, an odd little song that sounds like it is decrying much of modern life - specifically the economics of the 2010s to date - and whilst I have a lot of sympathy with that point of view the song itself is no more than so-so. Its wry sideswipe is not enough to overcome the surprisingly bland delivery and composition.
Sam Sweeney pops up again, this time carrying a fiddle tune that is much more typical of his fare, a bit more lively yet still tuneful and crafty. What confuses me, though, is that this song is on the same album as The Farmer's Cursed Wife which appears on the 2013 folk awards album (disc 1). Actually I think that applies to the Lau track too. Really BBC Folk Awards - there wasn't enough good stuff for you to pick out from 2014 without repeat visits? For shame!
Next up another non-English song; Welsh this time, a song of the sea I think (a translation of the title gives "Raising Anchor"). Not enough to keep me interested. There follows a weird bluesy number - is that a mouth organ? - that had its plus points but frankly is a little lacking in power and venom for a protest song. Quite a nice change up from what has been before, yes, but a little odd in the process. Hotline starts with a radio broadcast that pertains to atomic something... certainly not something I would expect in a folk song but an intriguing opening to a piece. The tune that comes in as the radio is faded out is a bit sparse and not really in keeping with the tone of the words it replaced and frankly after 3 minutes has not gone anywhere. The same central theme repeated again and again with slight variations. It can work, but there is not enough to it here to make that an interesting pattern. Of course, as I start to type that the tune gets a bit more depth, and then a sax cuts in to make the whole thing feel a little more like a jazz improv piece. I am not at all anti-jazz but this is incongruous in the extreme and in all honesty it just strikes me as a mess and not very good.
At this point I realise how far through I am, and resolve to go to the end; I am on holiday this week after all and the late night will not be that detrimental. There is one gem to come, but are there more?
Track 19 is a song with piano backing, and the singer is alright but nothing special whilst the tune is functional but not outstanding. Too bland for me. The same may well go for the following number actually, only here the singing is less than alright for my tastes, a bit of an edge in his voice that puts me off even before the dreary song and tune are taken into account. At least now I get the gem. Lisa Knapp enchants me - there is difference here. Her ethereal tones and non-standard song construction make this a compelling tale even without it really ever taking off like the birds it describes.
Another eight minute epic to slog through now - and whilst I have just committed myself to doing the whole lot in one go tonight it suddenly feels like a slog in truth. Pipes and guitars, twee tunes, generic highlands image montage mode engaged. That is a little unfair, perhaps but it is what goes through my mind - I feel like it could be a tune from an episode of Hamish Macbeth or Monarch of the Glen and there are a couple of points where this really shines out, recesses in the music which feel almost designed to be filled in by a visual. About 4 minutes in it starts going full on pipe reel but it all feels distant, impersonal somehow, and it fails to engage me. I am looking down the track list and of the tracks so far I am retaining 10%, just two. I would also have kept Lucy Ward's but I have just ordered the album it came from so...
Fay Hield may be married to one of my favourite musicians but her material leaves me cold. I say that based on two tracks - this one and the the one on disc 2 of 2013. I find her voice flat and the arrangement cold here and it is enough for me not to want to explore any more.
Finally we are into the Young Musician nominees, get through these and I can leave the folk awards behind forever as if nothing else the last couple of weeks have taught me that whilst I probably do want to scan through the nominees because I have stumbled on undiscovered gold, buying the discs is not a good investment overall. The first of 4 tracks from the young'uns is a raucous number calling to mind images of hill-billies whilst being boring. Energy is good, but it is not sufficient for interest on its own. The contrast with the second track is significant, another Gaelic number with very sparse support. The singer's voice sounds fragile, unsure, but at the same time that frailty gives it a human warmth that makes me smile wistfully. The song does feel too long because there really isn't much there to support the singer and the phrasing is drawn out, but other than that it is a nice number. Granny's Attic as a name and a drinking song are not necessarily what I would expect from a young folk nominee but well... that's what I have got. It is not as loud and leery as I would have anticipated and actually it suffers for that. Not interesting enough. And so to the final song of this marathon... fittingly it ends in a puff of nothing, for this has been a particularly bad collection. Between frumpy old-sounding material and re-use of the prior year's releases I think this should draw a line under my desire to buy any more BBC Folk Awards albums. The final count is 3 of 27 kept, with an honourable mention for one more that triggered a purchase; that is a poor return.
I can now look ahead, but not too far. I'll have another string of "very similar" stuff to wade through within B as I hit first a load of Ben Folds (Five/Live) and then the Big Box of John Lee Hooker - six discs with 20 tracks each. B is turning out to be pretty hard work.
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