Music Arcades: Various: Oak Ash Thorn

Three years and a handful of days ago, a couple called Sue and ~~Nigel~~ Nygel started a folk night called The Goose is Out, originally upstairs at the East Dulwich Tavern. Amazing to think that it's only three years, because their gigs have so quickly established themselves as the one series of cultural events that it's worth keeping up with around here. I've seen Martin Carthy solo, Carthy with Dave Swarbrick, Carthy with Norma Waterson — I had to miss one (or maybe two) of his local shows because I had a Carthy overdose. There's no such thing in my physiology as an Alasdair Roberts overdose, and in May he'll be playing up the road (the Goose has now moved to a larger room at Dulwich Hamlet Football Club) for the third time in 25 months — which I think may make it his most visited venue in that time. That's not to mention stuff like Radio 2 Folk Award winner Ewan McLennan playing in a pub a few weeks ago, and Dick Gaughan in June. So much good stuff that the list of things I've missed far outstrips what I've seen.

~~Then, when I looked the other way for a moment, Nigel and Sue started up a record label as well~~. [Update, 5 April 2011: Serious egg on my face here. I just bumped into Nygel (note spelling) and Sue in the local Caffe Nero, mentioned that I was enjoying this CD, and, following the blank looks I got, established that they haven't started any record label, and the Nigel who runs Folk Police is someone else entirely. My apologies to him and to them. That the connection I'd made turned out not to exist undermines the whole drift of this post. Too bad; worse things happen at sea.]

Oak Ash Thorn is [Folk Police's] third release, and when Jackie Oates played the Goose four weeks ago, copies were on sale in the interval. I checked quickly with Guy and Annie that the album was up to scratch — I knew Guy would have got a copy within days of its February release, and sure enough he vouched that "every track's a winner" — and also got them to give me change for a £20 note. I gave one of the tenners to Jackie Oates herself, in return for this CD, to which she contributed a song. (Too much prosaic detail, I know, but I haven't got time to edit, and after 1,925 posts on this site, a weary autopilot has taken over at my keyboard.)

I confess I knew nothing more of Peter Bellamy than his name, until this tribute album was announced late last year. (The sleeve notes seem a pretty good place to start swotting up, explaining Bellamy's career-long fascination with setting Rudyard Kipling's poems, which is the focus of Oak Ash Thorn.) The album reminds me very much of the Lal Waterson tribute put together by Charlotte Greig, another folk-club-host-cum-album-curator. In fact the two albums have a few artists in common: Elle Osborne, Alex Nielson and Lavinia Blackwall (though each appearing under different names). For the Alasdair-obsessed, Nigel clarified that he was invited, but decided against participating.

I've listened three or four times now, and, well, it takes a lot for me to say that every track's a winner admit (or, perhaps more pertinently, to agree unreservedly with Guy), but the quality is consistently high. Certainly no turkeys. These poems all sound very natural as songs: it's hard to believe that they were written without music in mind. Favourites so far are the songs by Jon Boden, Sam Lee and The Owl Service. Olivia Chaney is always good, as above, Tim Eriksen and Charlie Parr impose themselves on their songs. The Unthanks take the title tune, and I'm very slowly warming to them — I know everyone else has loved them for ages, but it's taken me a while to come around (their cover of Starless on their new album helped). I'm pretty sure their song features binaural recording, as with Combat Astronomy: on headphones I hear a sound that seems to come from above. The BBC had a nice April Fool featuring Robert Fripp that extends from binaural to 3D listening.

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Wikipedia entry for Peter Bellamy's Kipling ballads