By an odd coincidence, within a few days of being asked to review the Late Bloøm and Rosa Anschütz albums I was also asked to review this. But what is it? Well, it is a compilation of tunes recorded for the Old Tunes, Fresh Takes podcast, which is run by Jack Sibley and Tim Woodson. For the podcast, people recorded new versions of folk tunes, with these people often being people from outside the purist folk tradition, recording the songs with whatever instruments they have to hand (the podcast started during lockdown) and not necessarily in a reverential folkie manner. Looking at the track listing I can see that the album features several versions of the same songs, notably 'Brisk Lad', 'My Son David', & 'Cruel Mother', and listening to it reveals that some of the songs with different titles are in fact also versions of some of the others. The people playing on the record are not names familiar to me but I am remarkably ignorant so they are probably all household names; I did at least notice the musical alter-egos of the two guys who run the podcast, Hevelwood and Jack The Robot.
But is it any good? Now, if I had never heard this record and you were to describe the basic concept to me, I would say "That sounds terrible", my thinking being that folk music is one form that does not profit from updating or incursions from new instrumentation or later forms of music. And you may recall the extreme hostility with which I reviewed music by The Imagined Village, another lot who combined electronic stuff with folky stuff. However, for me this record works. Although it is I think coming from a different direction, it ends up reaching a similar aesthetic position to some of the Ghost Box records, with the vocals (often the most folkie part of these tracks) seeming to haunt the electronic or electric musical accompaniment. Also the tracks somehow feel like they are still true to the essence of their folk origins even while emerging from a radically different mode of instrumentation. It helps I think that a fair few of the songs are of the edgy and sinister folk tradition, as opposed to the more bland hey nonny nonny school.
I should point out also that this compilation is being made available on a pay-what-you-like basis on Bandcamp, with the money raised going to Help Musicians UK and Music in Detention. The first of these helps musicians throughout their careers and into retirement, while the second uses music to help people being held in British immigration detention centres.
Check out the compilation on Bandcamp or the podcast on Soundcloud.
