Folk is fixed, staid and fusty, stuck in its ways. This reputation lingers, so shake it: the best of it has survived by being remixed and reborn. Take the work of Naomi Bedford (a one-time singer with Orbital) and Paul Simmons (of folk punks the Men They Couldn’t Hang). Now on their third album together, they are resolutely DIY, self-releasing and self-promoting, but their results are beautifully polished, what mainstream labels should be releasing: spirited revisions of traditional songs, rather than anodyne collections of aural chloroform.
This album fires up ballads that Maud Karpeles and Cecil Sharp collected in the Appalachian mountains during the first world war. The sound is resolutely American in style and in sound. Bedford’s vocals recall the exquisite shiver of Emmylou Harris with extra boom, while Simmonds has more Englishness hovering around his American twang. The authenticity mob might twitch at such transatlantic heresy, but let’s remember Ewan MacColl’s name and persona was an invention, and that “realness” is bunk. This pair also inhabit these songs so joyfully and effortlessly that anyone begrudging them is to be pitied.
Proper life crackles here. In I Must and Will Be Married, Bedford conveys the rebellious charge of teenage desire and an edge of fear perfectly (the brilliant Lisa Knapp joins on dulcimer). Hangman (a duet with Simmonds) is all bluesy Janis Joplin stomp, while The Foggy Dew becomes an audacious a cappella, regret and pride hanging around the tale of a maid the protagonist gets pregnant. The best reinvention here is of Matty Groves, in a different lyrical version to the Fairport Convention classic, which injects rhythm, sunshine and joy into the song that begins with a “bright summer’s morning”. This is a direct record to bathe in, full of vivid light and air.
Also out this month
The Lush cosmetics label ECC continues to support wayward folk projects such as Instant Replay, a triple album of folk musicians and part-timers covering – anarchically – their favourite post-punk, soul and more. Marry Waterson’s go at the Cure’s 10:15 Saturday Night is its delicious highlight. A Year in the Country’s latest uncanny release is The Watchers, a celebration of Britain’s trees that mixes electronica with eerie folk from Sproatly Smith, and Widow’s Weeds with the Kitchen Cynics. Gentler souls will prefer Edgelarks’ album Feather, Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin’s fifth outing of exquisitely played, folk-flavoured songs. Martin’s Bible-black, startling voice – imagine a traditional Tracey Thorn – remains to die for.
