A Walk Around Britain

After a great day singing on the streets of Penzance, we found ourselves invited to sing with some other bands, later in the evening. The venue was a room in which was made the first announcement of victory in the Battle of Trafalgar. It was an incredibly velvet and chandeliered room, filled with the memory of triumph and celebration.

We sung before Thistletown, again ignoring the offered mics to try and fill the room with the sound of voices without translation. It was a good go, and people were happy to listen and bob along.

Then Thistletown played, a cloud-borne fairy castle of twisting medieval dreams.

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We expect every reviewer enjoys writing about this band, as they permit such flowery prose.

Beside this, they are exemplary musicians, instrumentalists of rare quality and playfulness. We had a great night, meeting the trad youth of Kernow.

Based in Falmouth, Ben and Lydia gave us their number, to call them when we walked back to Falmouth. We had avoided Falmouth on the way to Penzance, as we had engaged on a 46 mile day and night march to get to Penwith. We took it all a lot slower on our way out.

So in Falmouth we rung the number, and spent beautiful days with the band, on their boat and in their other haunts.

They are apparently now disbanded. They met success with the backing of a Guardian journalist, who was given money by the paper to set up a cottage record label. But the projection into the world of album sales and national reviews was perhaps uneasy. They were billed as every hippy’s dream, the bearded and ethereal answer to modern woes, and given high profile performances, and then there was the money issues to deal with.

The band has now branched into separate endeavours, which although sad to hear, will doubtless bring new and mighty fruit in the near future.

Their album, Rosemarie, is a beautiful disc of Cornish magic. Bag a copy, if you can.

This winter we stayed at home and made an album.

It is a selection of seventeen songs we like to sing, sixteen traditional and one of our own.

It is available for download NOW, from  HERE at the Pondlife Studios website, a brilliant indepenent  music resource.

The CD proper is in the process of designing and printing. It has some stunning artwork by Shelley Mould,  tales of the songs and their histories. If you would like a copy LET US KNOW and we will contact you when the record arrives.

Here is a sample track from the album called Spenser the Rover:

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We’ve been sorting the printing and editing while being on the road, so for  those waiting for copies to arrive, we won’t be long now.

‘Folk’ can often seem a dirty word. It is, in certain wide circles, a joke with a punchline of beards and sandals. But these circles inevitably buy into their own silly musical preferences, and that’s fine.

People use the word ‘folk’ to point out things that they both identify with, and don’t. ‘Folk’ means the common culture of all people, but not me. I’m distinct. I’m modern.

Our understanding is that all music is ‘folk’, is rooted in the musical traditions that came before. Even music that apparently rebels, that hopes to sound different and move away from earlier styles, is being directly influenced by old music. The old is always the point of departure for the new.

Folk is everyone, is all people. Our music, our culture, comes from people, who all have more in common than they are distinct. Indeed, despite (or due to) this obvious fact, that national cultural traditions belong to, and form, their home-landscape, ‘folk’ values have been used as a weapon to encourage barriers and war. Nazi Germany famously mass-published its acceptable canon of national song, with lyrics designed to glorify Nazi values, and with rousing tunes to inspire valour and triumph. But this is normal human power games. Ever since the printing press was made, ballads of dubious anonymity have been published and circulated, in the hope of tricking people, by music, to accept a lie. Various kings, governments, and toothpastes have sought to convey their message with the help of a good tune and a well-written lyric. This seems to be what ‘folk’ do.

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These boys are a gang of sincerely brilliant musicians, dedicated and experimental. Remember the Canterbury Scene? Here it is.

They make progressive, intelligent, raucous and funky psychedelia…they are a pleasant nightmare for the genre-giver.

They have released a fine EP, called Kingdoms of Experience, and are doubtless to be soon pressing an album.

Syd Arthur are another band that you will soon hear more about. They will be all over the festivals this summer, and their sounds and rhythms will be certain to shunt many an audience into throbbing dances.

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www.myspace.com/sydarthur

This was the band with which Ed and Ginger first went funny.

Deservingly popular on the UK ska scene, their live performances were legendary, with the audience dripping off the ceiling in tumults of moshing mayhem.

They are no longer playing together, but are always contemplating a reunion tour, sometime soon, perhaps tomorrow…

They released a few Eps, and one album, called ‘Smoothing Away the Horrors of Indigestion.”

Here are some tracks:

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www.myspace.com/yewileshome

Here is an impro song by Will, found to be strangely catchy. In truth, it occasionally caused umbrage with its frequent reappearance into consciousness.

Sebastian-Stan

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And for a caveat, please press more…

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