A Walk Around Britain

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:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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.

(more…)

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.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And for a caveat, please press more…

(more…)

Based in Montreal, Swift Years are not a gang we have encountered on our British ramblings.

But the internet is a marvellous thing, and Patrick, a member of the band, has written in from Canada and offered us good advice, and well wishing.

So we listened to their music, which describes itself as:

“An eclectic ensemble whose music crosses cultural and geographical boundaries with effortless virtuousity.

Swift Years repertoire ranges from the fireworks and soaring melodies of Gypsy music to the hard-driving rhythm of American Folk.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

We find it eminently listenable, jolly, and exciting music, all blended up with expert musicianship. One day, we might hear the strings vibrate in the real-air…we shall hope it is so.

Swift Years

I’m not sure I’ve recovered from this one yet! It was definitely the busiest night we’ve ever had; standing room only in the hall and a head count of around 140 people at one stage in the evening. ‘The boys’ did us proud, thrilling the audience with two twenty minute sets of unaccompanied traditional folk songs in glorious three-part harmony, with gestures and theatricality and a terrific stage presence. The harmonies and diction were, as ever, immaculate; surely this trio rank with the finest folk acts in the country, or will very soon once they’re properly ‘discovered’. The lads insisted we clear the mics away, and entertained a packed hall with just their voices, proving that the old ways are the best! We hope they enjoyed what must surely have been their most exciting gig yet, as they are new to being in a headlining slot.

(more…)