Dino Valente

Much of what has been written of this album is quick to slate Valente’s voice and style of production (particularly the reverb) on this album, as well as to interpose bland comparisons with his peers without taking the material on its own merits. There is a free-wheeling, honest quality here and several songs that hold one’s interest with the quality of their instrumental and vocal parts as well as with the neurotic, tender expressiveness of the lyrics. While it lacks the completeness and finesse of a complete, commercially viable album there is much to appreciate here for the unpretentious listener who is not the kind of oversaturated, jaded obsessive of 1960s music who typically reviews this sort of material. Among the fascinating songs here 'Something New' and 'Me and My Uncle' are standouts.

A1. Time

A2. Something New

A3. My Friend

A4. Listen To Me

A5. Me And My Uncle

B1. Tomorrow

B2. Children Of The Sun

B3. New Wind Blowing

B4. Everything Is Gonna Be Ok

B5. Test

mp3/320kbps

The Voice of the People: Good People, Take Warning

"This is the first of the new 'Voice of the People Series' CDs that I've reviewed, and if the rest of these new releases are up to this standard, we're in for another feast of glorious singing.  The four just-released offerings make it clear that while some aspects of the first Series remain the same, there's quite a lot that is different.  Only two of the new ones are singles - one's a double, and this present volume is a triple.  The thematic approach of the earlier Series is not entirely retained (one is just the work of one singer), and the others appear to be more 'grouped' than themed.  Gone are the 'super' jewel cases - replaced by 15mm thick card slip-cases - containing both a substantial booklet and the CD in a single or double normal jewel case or, with the present one, a triple digipak.  I think this may be an improvement... but time and usage will tell.

The booklet starts with Reg Hall's new, improved Introduction - to the Series as a whole, to the new releases, to the concept of 'traditional music and song', and to the compiler of each CD set (Steve Roud in this case).  It is quite as good and complete as we have come to expect from Dr. Hall.  This volume then has a long introductory piece from Steve, on the idea and history of the Ballad.  It all boils down to a couple of nice phrases: a ballad is a song which tells a story; and Child Ballads are 'costume drama', while broadside ballads are 'soap opera'.  Couldn't have put it better myself!

Another thing we find from the introductory piece is that, since this volume is dedicated to ballads, there will be rather more detailed notes on those ballads than upon the singers.  This approach flies in the face of the booklets to the earlier 20 CDs, where Reg Hall was at pains to emphasise the importance of the performer over what was performed.  You may recall that they had virtually no song notes at all - prompting Mike Yates to write some; now included in the VotP Suite of pages in MT.  What changed Reg's mind in this instance is not discussed in the booklet, but he seemed happy enough about it at the launch in C# House on the 15th March.

The approach varies between the four new VotP volumes: Shirley Collins provides some brief song notes in her Gypsy double CD, none at all in the Southern English Singers disc; I provided a hefty biography of Sarah Makem, but also individual song notes; Steve Roud has opted for very brief biographical pieces on the singers, and often hefty notes on the ballads.  So the unified approach of the earlier series is now modified by the preferences of the individual compilers - at least you know who to blame if you don't like what they've done!

There follows a series of these micro-biographies of the singers whose songs we shall hear on the CDs.  This seems to be something of a relapse on Topic's part - they used to put all the song notes together, rather than with the song texts later in the booklets.  Mercifully, this changed a few years ago - but, by the same token, it would seem more useful if the micro-biography of, say, Phoebe Smith, appeared with the first instance of one of her songs at track 18 on CD1, rather than having to turn back 40 pages in the booklet to find it!

Enough of the booklet - what of the 61 songs spread over these three CDs?  Perhaps the first thing to say is that there are far more female singers than is usual on a traditional singers' compilation.  Steve Roud tell us that this was intentional on his part - an attempt to re-balance the picture - which was aided by the fact that Peter Kennedy (whose recordings make up the great majority of tracks on these new VotP issues) actually recorded far more female singes than was usual at the time.  A good point to remember in our appraisal of the importance of this often controversial figure.  Roud also alerts us to the fact that we'll find relatively few recordings by the 'big names' of ballad singing here - since many of their performances already appear in other CD publications.

Rather obviously, I'm not about to comment on each song - I'll stick to citing those which particularly impress or interest me.  We start CD 1, gloriously, with Bob and Ron Copper singing 'The Bold Fisherman'; Steve's notes refute the notion of this being descended from an allegorical medieval original, pointing out that its earliest appearance is in the first decades of the 19th century.  The lovely Maggie Murphy (Chambers as she was then) gives us 'Doran's Ass', a splendid humorous song I'd never heard before, and Ben Butcher sings a woefully short version of 'Sheffield Park', to a gorgeous broken-time tune.  I'd have loved to hear more of him, but this is his only song here.  For those of you who crave one of the big ones: Jeannie Robertson sings a ten minute 'Johnnie Cock' ('Johnnie o' Breadislee') most effectively; Sarah Makem gives a lovely 'Carolina and the Sailor'; Lucy Stewart sings 'The Jolly Beggar'; and Thomas Moran, 'The Blind Beggar's Daughter'.

To return to somewhat smaller and lighter stories, Maureen Melly gives us a delightful 'Trip [we took] Over the Mountain', while Margaret Jeffrey (a Scottish Traveller recorded on the berryfields of Blair) sings 'When I Was a Young Maid' ('The Female Drummer') to a great and lively tune I've never heard before to this well-known song.  Sandwiched between them is Phoebe Smith with 'The Oxford Girl' - unsurpassable!

On CD 2 we find a few more lighter songs: Harry Cox gives one of the best versions of 'The Crabfish' - although it does miss the hilarious 'Yes Sir, yes Sir, I've got two - one is for you and the other is for me' line; Mary Toner has a lively 'Jogging up to Claudy' (in the sour milk cart); but we have to wait 'til track 21 before the dark clouds of heavy balladry part, revealing an absolutely brilliant Michael Gallagher, with 'The Devil and the Bailiff'.  This is not, of course, to dismiss the heavy (or long) stuff but, as you'll see from the tracklist above, it's all fairly well-known.  Though special mention should be made of Mary Doran's 'Oxford City' - real Irish Traveller singing at its best, and of 'Her Servant Man', sung by Gladys Stone - a Sussex singer so little known that she doesn't even got a micro-biography!  She's really good - I hope there's more of her somewhere in the Kennedy archive.

On CD 3 Maggie Chambers (Murphy) starts us off well with a very full version of 'The Banks of the Silvery Tide', sung to the tune of 'Skibbereen', followed by an equally good and lively 'Hungry Fox' from Bob and Ron Copper - great to find the Coppers here, since they were, unaccountably, missing from the earlier VotP series.  Peter Donnelly, from Co. Tyrone, sings a very full (12 verse) version of the rare ballad 'John McCann' ('Charming Mary Neill') - and he is a great story teller.  The next track, 'The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow', was a bit of a shock when I first heard it - I thought it was a very young Belle Stewart... but it is actually her daughter-in-law, Mary Anne Stewart; lovely singing of a great song.  Next, Harry Cox sings 'The Squire and the Gypsy'; a great favourite in this family.  Like Bob Dylan's early ballads, it seems incoherent and fragmented - but by the end you know exactly what's happened.  Steve Roud tells us that only two traditional versions are known, and that the few broadside versions are much longer and set in very flowery language.  Somewhere along the way, someone has taken all the best lines, re-ordered them, and produced a far superior piece of work.

A great delight is 'Willie Lennix', sung by Joe Moran, a young boy from Co. Antrim - and one is reminded of the 'unknown boy' who sang 'Four Green Fields' so effectively on 'Come West Along the Road', or indeed of seven-year-old Sheila Smith singing 'Dear Father Pray Build Me a Boat' on the Gypsy double CD in this series - although she was much younger.  We tend to think that age and experience is needed to sing these songs well, so it's good to be reminded that there are a few young people who can do it, too, out of pure natural ability.

Talking of age and experience, Sam Larner gives us an uncharacteristically subdued 'Pretty Polly' ('Cruel Ship's Carpenter'), which it would be hard to beat, and Fred Jordan sings 'Six Pretty Maids' ('The Outlandish Knight') which is equally unbeatable - unless you've been lucky enough to hear Corney McDaid's splendid version from 'Inís Eoghaín'.

OK - enough!  I haven't mentioned lots of splendid singing of some of the more well-known ballads, or many of the more well-known singers to be found in this splendid selection... they are all wonderful, but there's only a limited space and time, not to mention the limits of your patience!  I applaud Steve Roud's selection, ranging from 'Barbara Allen' to 'Butter and Cheese and All'; from Jeannie Robertson to Joe Moran; from the 10-minute 'Johnnie Cock' to the 1-minute 'Two Pretty Boys'.  The only real disappointment was Phil Tanner's 'The Bonny Bunch of Roses' - a splendid and favourite ballad from a superb singer, delivered with no apparent feeling or commitment whatsoever!

The booklet is extremely good in almost all respects - particularly Steve's song notes - although a few of the transcriptions have little errors in them, and there are several occasions where verses are joined together when they should be separate.  But let's not be too picky - this is an excellent piece of work, crammed full of great ballads, well told.  Congratulations to all concerned. (Review from the Musical Traditions website. See here.)

1.1. The Copper Family - The Bold Fisherman

1.2. Jean Elvin - The Boston Smuggler

1.3. Maggie Chambers - Doran's Ass

1.4. Elizabeth Cronin - Molly Bawn

1.5. Paddy Doran - Seven Yellow Gypsies

1.6. Ben Butcher - In Sheffield Park

1.7. Maggie Stewart - The Braes O'Strathbane

1.8. Phil Tanner - The Bonny Bunch Of Roses

1.9. Jeannie Robertson - Johnie Cock

1.10. Gabriel Figg - Holloman's Ivy

1.11. Sarah Makem - Carolina And The Sailor

1.12. Lucy Stewart - The Jolly Beggar

1.13. Thomas Moran - The Blind Beggar's Daughter

1.14. Jim O'Neill - Her Mantle So Green

1.15. Mick McAlinden - My Father's Serving Boy

1.16. Maureen Melly - The Trip Over The Mountain

1.17. Sam Larner - The London Steamer

1.18. Phoebe Smith - The Oxford Girl

1.19. Margaret Jeffrey - When I Was A Young Maid (The Female Drummer)

2.1. Jean Elvin - Bloomimg Caroline

2.2. Harry Cox - The Crabfish

2.3. Elizabeth Cronin - Barbara Allen

2.4. Mary Toner - Joggin' Up To Clawdy

2.5. Harry List - The Light Dragoon

2.6. Dodie Chalmers - The Golden Victory

2.7. Gladys Stone - Her Servant Man

2.8. Seamus Ennis - Captain Wedderburn

2.9. Sarah Makem - Our Ship She's Ready

2.10. Paddy McCluskey - Willie & Mary

2.11. Lucy Stewart - Two Pretty Boys

2.12. Jim Copper - You Seamen Bold

2.13. Jean Matthew - The American Stranger

2.14. Paddy Grant - McCaffery

2.15. Thomas Moran - The Blind Man He Could See

2.16. Ethel Findlater - The Maid Of The Cowdie And Knowes

2.17. Harry Upton - The Wreck Of The Northfleet

2.18. Mary Doran - Oxford City

2.19. Joe Thomas - The Banks Of The Sweet Dundee

2.20. Dot Foubister - The Brig Columbus

2.21. Michael Gallagher - The Devil And The Bailiff

2.22. Jim O'Neill - The Moorlough Shore

2.23. Charlotte Higgins - Lord Bateman

3.1. Maggie Chambers - The Banks Of The Silvery Tide

3.2. The Copper Family - The Hungry Fox

3.3. Lucy Stewart - The Twa Sisters

3.4. Thomas Moran - Handsome Polly

3.5. Peter Donnelly - John McCann (Charming Mary Neill)

3.6. Togo Crawford - The Gates O'The Drum

3.7. Mary Anne Stewart - The Dowie Dens O'Yarrow

3.8. Harry Cox - The Squire And The Gypsy

3.9. Emily Bishop - Blow The Windy Morning

3.10. Joseph Higgins - The Banks Of The Bann

3.11. Michael Gallagher - Hiring Time

3.12. Jean Matthew - The Bleacher Lassie

3.13. Joe Moran - Willie Lennix

3.14. Sam Larner - Pretty Polly (The Cruel Ship's Carpenter)

3.15. Elizabeth Cronin - Well Sold The Cow

3.16. Fred Jordan - Six Pretty Maids (The Outlandish Knight)

3.17. George Bloomfield - Young George Oxbury

3.18. Mary McGarvey - Young But Growing

3.19. Leslie Johnson - Butter And Cheese And All

mp3/192kbps

Veljo Tormis - Choral Music

"Imagine this: a post-war totalitarian Britain, where creative artists are housed in their own discrete, genre-defined communities, looked after by the authorities but subtle contained and controlled too. One tenement, somewhere flanking central London and suburbia, has been for decades the shared address of writers and poets - Drabble, McEwan and Amis Jr. occupying one storey, Larkin and Amis Sr. two miscreants together on the fifth floor a while many years back.

"A few minutes' walk away, in a slightly grubbier block of flats, are the state-housed composers. Harris Bristwistle shares, somewhat tensely, a landing with Richard Rodeny Bennet, and together they tolerate the keyboard vamping, up the stairwell and through prefap ceilings, of Michael Nyman one storey below. It is not the happiest of musical communities, but there have been some good parties there over the years.

"Hard to imagine, yes: but the bricks-and-mortar reality is a 150-minute plane ride away, just west of St. Petersburg and a ferry shuttle across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki. Tallinn's No. 7 Lauteri Street is the residential block of the Estonian Composers' Union. And here, under one roof, lived for several decades many of the country's musical elite - at least until the end of Soviet rule in 1991. Neeme Järvi used to live there, and Arvo Pärt's first wife still does. Her neighbour, sharing a stark, functional landing of stone floor and iron stair balustrades, is one of Estonia's most illustrious figures. Within national boundaries he is widely celebrated - though not in lifestyle a 'celebrity' - and in composer-terms he is an Estonian household name in such a way that only one composer can claim in Britain, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

"Internationally, Arvo Pärt, an émigré since 1980, may be Estonia's most famous living composer. But Veljo Tormis - five years his senior and his one-time teacher - is the composer Estonia cherishes most on home turf. In November 2000 no fewer than fifty-five choirs marked his seventieth birthday in a concert in Tallinn; and within a period of two months around his August birthday a further twenty-three concerts were given in honour across Estonia.

"2000 was the year Tormis chose, perhaps unusually for a composer, to retire. He now describes himself - even on his Tallinn apartment's doorbell - as 'Composer Emeritus', but he remains fully engaged with a lifelong evangelism for his country's folk-song tradition. Alongside an almost music, shamanic status in Estonia, he is the passionate and practical torch-bearer for folk-singing revival - from kindergarten to pensioner homes - and the integration of an ancient cultural inheritance into thoroughly moden, post-Soviet lives.

"'We must stop treating our own song culture as a museum exhibit or as tourist exotica meant for a chosen few', he wrote in his 1972 manifesto 'Folk Song and Us'. That pamphlet, apart from cleverly aligning personal artistic credo with a certain line-towing Soviet political correctness, was above all a love-letter to Estonia's ancient runic songs, 'regilaul'. This was the folk heritage Tormis had become interested in during the previous decade - duple-metered, single-voiced songs, with alliterative non-rhyming texts and the call-response pattern of soloist and chorus.

"'Regilaul', Tormis wrote, 'is our people's oldest, unique, most highly evolved and complete creation throughout the centuries, an expression of the people's creative genius [...] ancient folks song can be, and indeed is, independent art, not merely as an ornamentation. As important as its aesthetic worth is its ethical value. For regilaul embodies the life values of working people which have evolved over thousands of years. Why should we now abandon this heritage to oblivion or scorn it as archaic?'

"Tormis's father was a Lutheran music teacher and church organist, and from early on he was steeped in Estonia's rich, essentially Germanic, song culture. Early twentieth-century folk revivalism was all part of this, stemming from Estonia's 'National Awakening' in the nineteenth century and the country's first United Song Festival in 1869. Composers from the generation before him, such as Cyrillus Kreek and Mart Saar, created a new body of choral folk-song arrangements, more sentimental and rounded than regilaul's rugged terrain. Much Estonian folk song 'collecting' went on in the early decades of the twentieth century too - an important ethnographical exercise similar to that of Vaughan Williams, Grainger and Cecil Sharp in Britain, and Bartók and Kodály in Hungary and Romania. So Veljo Tormis's towering achievement has been, in the last four decades, to bring back to life this 'primeval' heritage - what he calls his 'musical mother-tongue' - within the broader context of his country's proud and vibrant singing culture. With means as varied as entry-level school songbooks, articles, lectures and several hundred choral arrangements of great character and sophistication, Tormis approaches his ninth decade optimistic that ancient Estonian song will hold its own in the consciousness of younger generations otherwise bombarded by globally homogenized pop culture.

"Less that two decades on from gaining independence, Estonia's capital is a tourist-friendly place of gentrified lanes, towers, turrets and themed taverns just the right side of tacky - a medieval fantasy made affordably real for plane-loads of beered-up, low-fare, stag-weekenders. But for Veljo Tormis, Tallinn is something much more complex, a city of foreign occupation and influence, of imposed political regimes and cultural dictat. Born in the middle of Estonia's twenty-two years of self-rule (1918-40), Tormis subsequently witnessed as a boy the to-and-fro of wartime annexation (Soviet 1940-41, German 1941-44) and then the enforced stability of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1991.

"The central paradox then, of a man whose life's work has been almost entirely devoted to defining Estonian musical nationhood is that he is a Soviet artist, the product of a regime dedicated strictly to 'Russifying' its satellite peoples. After teenage studies in organ, conducting and composition in Tallinn, it was the -Moscow- Conservatoire that gave Tormis his rigorous, formative training in the early 1950s. He was present at Prokofiev's funeral in 1953. His teacher was Vissarion Shebalin, and fellow classmates included Rodion Shchedrin, Edison Denisov and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Shostakovich was Chairman of the Jury for his graduation portfolio in 1956. And there are KGB files on Tormis from 1960 to 1989.

"Tormis the Soviet, Tormis the folk nationalist: the two don't immediately sit well together. But just as Shostakovich famously walked the tightrope of official censure over many decades, Tormis cleverly managed the balancing act too. He learnt early on, in 1948 from his organ teacher Edgar Arro, that a certain kind of nationalism found favour in Moscow, that the right tunes used in the right ways actually fitted with the anti-formalist policies of Socialist Realism. In the same way, the extraordinary phenomenon of Estonian Song Festivals - said to attract nearly a third of the entire population every five years to Tallinn's stadium-like Song Festival Field - was enthusatically adopted in Soviet times. This huge statement of sung nationalism, born in 1869 of German-Swiss origins and the driving force of independence in the late 1980s, became in Soviet Estonia a useful tool of massed cultural (and therefore political) communication.

"The cultural isolation of Soviet-era Eastern-bloc composers led inevitably to a skewed perspective of recent music history. Tormis recalls how the official textbooks stopped with Grieg, and how as a student in Moscow he obtained access to scores of Debussy and Stravinsky as if they were contraband from the decadent West. Later he flirted unenthusiastically with twelve-tone composition technique - though it was Arvo Pärt who became the first Soviet composer to out himself as a serialist with 'Nekrolog' in 1959. The turning-point of Tormis's musical discovery was a rare trip beyond Estonian borders to Hungary in 1962. There, he took the opportunity to buy dozens of scores by Bartók and Kodály, and to study the integration of folk material within their own individual musical voices. From this point, Tormis began to specialize more and more in folk-song-derived choral writing. His output to this point included sonatas, overtures, an epic cantata on the story of Kalevipoeg. From the mid-1960s onwards, apart from some film scores and music theatre works, the Tormis catalogue is almost exclusively music for choirs. Few composers have been so committed to one genre, medium or instrument - Corelli's writing for violin and Chopin's for piano are two other such cases. And Tormis's choral specialism marks him out from Bartók, Kodály, Vaughan Williams and Grainger, whose pioneering interest in folk song was ultimately less purist for their use of only the tunes in instrumental or orchestral works. For Tormis, the words and the music are inseparable.

"With the exception of the second Ernst Enno setting, which was one of the last pieces Tormis wrote before retirement, the works on this disc divide neatly into two: those written before the mid-sixties are 'original' settings, and those written afterwards are arrangements of folk material.

"The two settings of Ernst Enno (1875-1934) effectively bookend Tormis's career. The first was composed when he was only eighteen and is a simple, lifting 6/8 pastoral dedicated to his girlfriend of the time. The second was written in 1998, and is dedicated to his wife of all the intervening decades, Lea. Constructed, superficially, from the same simple materials - the 6/8 metre, the parallel thirds and triadic harmony - this is a work of infinitely greater scope and sophistication. Free of folk song, but imbued with all its influence, this near-final act of pure creation links back to the start with craftsmanship and control.

"The first of  the three 'Kalevipoeg' songs, 'O, my gentle tender mother', was written in 1954 as a tribute to Tormis's mother. She had died the year before while he was away studing in Moscow, so his choice of text and musical response to the disturbing, bitter twist near the end - a suitable anguished climax - is poignant.

"The other two settings of texts from Kreutzwald's nineteenth-century national legend, 'Kalevipoeg' (Kalev's Son), were written in 1960. In 'Daughters of the Meadow Matron', with its rustic calls and charming alto patter, we hear Tormis properly finding his folk-art voice for the first time. With only limited harmonic and melodic range, he creates real character through texture and refined textual essence instead. This is the case, too, with 'The wave rolls', where a satisfying, dramatic architecture is built on the simple foundation of repeated bass patterns.

"'Autumn landscapes', seven settings of poems by Viivi Luik (born 1946), is the last freely composed work on this disc before Tormis's full folk song conversion. Written two years after his visit to Hungary, there is an indebtedness to Kodály, a wider harmonic and textural palette, and greater confidence with colouristic effects such as glissandi, 'parlando' and feather-light staccato.

"In 1966-7 Tormis full found his way into a distinctive folk-song style with the five-part, twenty-nine-song 'Calendar Songs' cycle. His next large project ebgan with a musical-anthropoligical visit to north-western Latvia with some students from Tartu University. This 'expedition', as Tormis calls it, triggered a fascination with tiny, ever-declining populations of kindred Finno-Ugric peoples. The 1969 visit to Livonia was followed the following year by visits to Votia and Izhoria, regions mostly in modern-day Russia near the Estonian border. Eventually, a complete cycle of fifty-one songs 'Unustatud rahvad' ('Forgotten peoples'), compiled between 1970 and 1989, comprised 'Livonian heritage', 'Votic wedding songs', 'Izhorian epic', 'Ingrian evenings', 'Vepsian paths and 'Karelian destiny'. As a vast project of ethnographic, musicological preservation it was some of Tormis's most imaginative writing. 'Livonian heritage''s opening song, 'Walking the birds', is a five-minute drama of drone-based incantation and atmosphere. The other songs contain much vivid nature depiction, and evocations of something primevally connected to the land.

"The looping repetitions of the fourth Livonian song, 'Wee winkie mouse', are heard again in the Ingrian song 'Singing aboard ship' (1983). Here the verses keep on coming from the alto soloist and chorus, as they describe the exodus of young men conscripted to fight, while their sweethearts stay behind weeping on the shore.

"Again, in the 'Three Estonian game songs' (1972), Tormis takes three regilaul melodies of limited melodic range and weaves something mesmeric out of their repetitive, haunting spirit. The 5/8 ostinato of bass paired thirds is a masterly touch in 'The grindstone game' - its nagging, mechanical quality finally overwhelming the dogged tune. Masterly too is the sonorous spacing of Tormis's characteristically parallel chords in 'The finger-binding game'. And with such simple means - the shifting oscillation of adjacent triads - 'The ship game' is given a dream, swaying character and rich harmonic scope.

"In complete contrast to the compact, largely un-embellished four-part settings of 'Four Estonian lullabies' (1989), 'Childhood memory (Herding calls)' is an expansive, dramatic treatment of Tormis's chosen material. 'On small ancient Estonian farmsteads', he writes, 'it was customary to have children herd the cattle. They called out to neighbours' children and so kept in touch on woody pastures. Everybody had his or her token melodies which varied according to the time of day, weather and mood.' This is Tormis's most honest, even sentimental tribute to a rustic childhood - in memory of his sister, and based on herding motifs by the singer Aino Tamm and composer Miina Härma.

"Tormis has said that he is 'more a mediator than a creator' - that 'it is not I who makes use of folk music, but folk music that makes use of me'. It is surely this appealing humility that has enabled the arranger-composer's interventions to be judged so well - allowing the musical personality of one not to smother those of nameless millions that came before him and which, through these melodies, still live on." (Meurig Bowen, 2008. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Holst Singers, Stephen Layton

1. Two Songs To Words By Ernst Enno: Early Summer's Fairy Tale

2. Two Songs To Words By Ernst Enno: Soundlessly Somewhere Murmurings Homeward

3. Three Estonian Game Songs: The Grindstone Game

4. Three Estonian Game Songs: The Finger-Binding Game

5. Three Estonian Game Songs: The Ship Game

6. Three Songs From The Epic 'Kalev's Son': O, My Gentle Tender Mother

7. Three Songs From The Epic 'Kalev's Son': Daughters Of The Meadow Matron

8. Three Songs From The Epic 'Kalev's Son': The Wave Rolls

9. Livonian Heritage: Waking The Birds

10. Livonian Heritage: At Pasture

11. Livonian Heritage: Shrovetide

12. Livonian Heritage: Wee Winkie Mouse (Lullaby)

13. Livonian Heritage: Sang The Father, Sang The Son

14. Singing Aboard Ship

15. Autumn Landscapes: It Is Late Summer

16. Autumn Landscapes: Clouds Are Racing

17. Autumn Landscapes: Pale Light

18. Autumn Landscapes: Painfully Red Are The Leaves

19. Autumn Landscapes: Wind Over The Barrens

20. Autumn Landscapes: Cold Autumn Night

21. Autumn Landscapes: Heather

22. Four Estonian Lullabies: I Sing For My Child

23. Four Estonian Lullabies: It's Time For The Little Berry To Sleep

24. Four Estonian Lullabies: Let The Cradle Swing!

25. Four Estonian Lullabies: Lulling

26. Childhood Memory (Herding Calls)

flac/16-bit

Ensemble für Frühe Musik Augsburg - Camino de Santiago: Musik auf dem Pilgerweg zum Hl. Jacobus

"There were three reasons why someone would undertake a pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: 'voluntarie' - of his own free will; 'ex voto' - because he had vowed to; and 'ex poenitentia' - as an act of atonement for his sins. There were then three holy shrines which he visit: Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela - St. James in Sternenfeld. Yet according to Dante, only someone who journeyed to Santiage was a real 'peregrino', a pilgrim, since the route leading there, the 'Camino de Santiago', was by far the most difficult and the longest.

"This judgment indicates the enormous upswing with which the pilgrimage to Santiage was made since the alledged grave of St. James was rediscovered in the first half of the ninth century in Galicia, the most northwestern part of Spain. Very soon thereafter pilgrims from Germany as well set off for Santiago, and numerous churches dedicated to St. James dating from the 11th-15th centuries bear witness still today to the reverent homage paid to the saint.

"Yet there is something else which has come down to us from this period: a language with which the pilgrims of different nationalities could communicate with one another on the way to Santiago, namely music. And thus the 'ensemble für frühe musik augsburg' ('Ensemble for Early Music - Augsburg') undertakes on the present recording a unique type of pilgrimage, a musical pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Performed are pilgrim songs, 'Cantigas de Santa Maria' - which relate stories of the miracles experienced by pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, and 'sacred' music, as it resounded in the Romanesque church in praise of God. But there are also songs to be heard from the trobadors and trouvères, who in that period displayed their art at the royal courts, as well as Tanzlieder and Estampiten, as they were performed by the travelling minstrels at the numerous festivities along the pilgrimage route." (From the liner notes.)

Performers: Ensemble für Frühe Musik Augsburg

1. Anonymous - Wer Daz Elend Bauen Wil (Str. 1, 2, 3)

2. Anonymous - Deus In Adiutorium

3. Anonymous - La Quinte Estampie Royal

4. Anonymous - El Mois D'avril – Al Cor Ai Unse Alegrance – Et Gaudebit

5. Anonymous - Prendés I Garde

6. Anonymous - Wer Daz Elend Bauen Wil (Str. 4, 5)

7. Wilhelm IX von Aquitainien - Pos De Chantar M'es Pres Talenz

8. Anonymous - La Tierche Estampie Royal

9. Anonymous - Clara Sonent Organa

10. Anonymous - Annus Novus In Gaudio

11. Wilhelm IX von Aquitainien - Farai Un Vers Pos Mi Sonelh

12. Anonymous - Wer Daz Elend Bauen Wil

13. Anonymous - Razon An De Seeren

14. Anonymous - Resurgentis Domini

15. Anonymous - Non E Gran Cousa

16. Anonymous - En Todo Tempo

17. Anonymous - Wer Daz Elend Bauen Wil (Str. 6, 7)

18. Anonymous - Congaudeant Catholici

19. Anonymous - Wer Daz Elend Bauen Wil (Str. 8)

20. Anonymous - Dum Pater Familias

flac/16-bit

Down in the Basement: Joe Bussards Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, 1926-1937

Excellent collection of vintage 78rpm singles from the nineteen twenties and thirties. There are many recognisable names here such as Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Uncle Dave Macon and Big Bill Broonzy, however it is an excellently curated collection. The Stripling Brothers' 'The Lost Child' and Cajun duo Soileau & Robin's 'Easy Rider Blues' are, personally, new found favourites.

1. The Stripling Brothers - The Lost Child

2. Big Bill Broonzy - How You Want It Done?

3. Luis Russell & His Orchestra -The (New) Call Of The Freaks

4. The Dixon Brothers - The School House Fire

5. Weems String Band - Greenback Dollar

6. Rev. Gary Davis - You Got To Go Down

7. A.A. Gray & Seven-Foot Dilly - The Old Ark's A-Moving

8. James Coles Washboard Four - Runnin' Wild

9. Charley Jordan - Keep It Clean

10. Bill Johnson's Louisiana Jug Band - Get The "L" On Down The Road

11. Sweet Brothers & Ernest Stoneman - I Got A Bulldog

12. Coleman & Harper - Old Hen Cackle

13. Bessie Brown - Song From A Cotton Field

14. Gene Autry - Atlanta Bound

15. Soileau & Robin - Easy Rider Blues

16. Bill Brown & His Brownies - Hot Lips

17. Uncle Dave Macon - Uncle Dave's Beloved Solo

18. Blind Blake - Hastings Street

19. Field Ward & The Grayson County Railsplitters - Ain't That Trouble In Mind

20. Corley Family - Give The World A Smile

21. Long "Cleve" Reed - Original Stack O'Lee Blues

22. Fess Williams & His Royal Flush Orchestra - Hot Town

23. Gitfiddle Jim - Paddlin' Blues

24. Grinnell Giggers - Plow Boy Hop

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Ewan MacColl & A.L. Lloyd - Blow Boys Blow

One of the finest collection of 'sea songs' but to vinyl by two grandmasters of English language folk songcraft. Lloyd and MacColl's voices are matched perfectly through consummate skill and understanding of their material. These songs are instantly rousing, funny and melancholic when they need to be and make us yearn for the world they came from. Released in 1958 on the seminal folk label Tradition. 

A1. Row Bullies Row
A2. Paddy Doyle
A3. Wild Goose Shanty
A4. While Cruising Round Yarmouth
A5. Old Billy Riley
A6. Handsome Cabin Boy
A7. South Australia
A8. Blow Boys Blow
B1. Whup Jamboree
B2. Banks Of Newfoundland
B3. Whiskey Johnny
B4. Do Me Ama
B5. Jack Tar
B6. Paddy West
B7. Haul On The Bowline
B8. A Hundred Years Ago

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Bob Dylan & The Band - The Genuine Basement Tapes Vol. 4

The fourth of five unofficial releases of Dylan's 1967 Saugerties, New York demo material on Italian label Scorpio. The mastering here is slightly different (more raw) than the official release of the complete tapes on Columbia, which gives them a certain charm and more of a feeling of being in that basement with Garth Hudson's tape recorder. This is music where you can really tell how much fun the musicians are having, songs are often as hilarious as they are musically touching. We hear Dylan change key midway through songs, the whole band cracking up as they reach seemingly completely unplanned musical peaks. A group of very talented and close knit musicians having a great time.

1. You Ain't Going Nowhere #1
2. Bourbon Street
3. All American Boy
4. Wild Wood Flower
5. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
6. She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain
7. Flight Of The Bumble Bee
8. Confidential To Me
9. I'm A Fool For You
10. Next Time On The Highway
11. The Big Flood
12. Every Time I Come To Town
13. See You Later, Allen Ginsberg
14. The Spanish Song #1 & #2
15. I Am Your Teenage Prayer
16. I'm In The Mood
17. Belchezaar #1 & #2
18. Bring It On Home
19. The King Of France

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John Fahey - Days Have Gone By

Features some of John Fahey's most inspired playing and audio experimentation. On almost every song here we hear moments of music that defy the ordinary, being laid down like a true American storyteller - creating new ideas seemingly from nothing. It could be said, however, that the success of Fahey's playing lies in the general orthodoxy of his influences: "American Primitivism," a term he coined to describe his playing, is very illuminating. Fahey blends together what the average American would know well, from folk standards ('My Grandfather's Clock') to blues ('Joe Kirby Blues') to hymns ('My Shepherd Will Supply My Needs') to the national anthem of Finland ('We Would Be Building'). The building blocks of Fahey's genius are (almost) all immediately familiar, and this is perhaps how he taps into the 'myth' of America so powerfully. Here Fahey's playing begins to be enjoined with artfully placed reverb, the sounds of thunder, rain and trains; more that stuns us into a dreamlike state to be party to the intense relationship shared by the man and his guitar.

A1. Revolt Of The Dyke Brigade
A2. Impressions Of Susan
A3. Joe Kirby Blues
A4. Night Train Of Valhalla
A5. Portland Cement Factory At Monolith, CA
A6. A Raga Called Pat - Part One
B1. A Raga Called Pat - Part Two
B2. My Shepherd Will Supply My Needs
B3. My Grandfather's Clock
B4. Days Have Gone By
B5. We Would Be Building

flac/16-bit

Robbie Basho - The Voice of the Eagle

Released on the Vanguard label in 1972. Unlike 1974's 'Zarthus' (see below, also on Vanguard) Basho plays guitar exclusively here, although like as with 'Zarthus' he is joined by Ramnad Raghavan on mrdangam drum on some songs. There is much more of a focus here on Basho's vocal talents, and traditional style songs infused with the musician's uniquely big hearted new world spiritualism. 'Wounded Knee Soliloquy' and 'Moving Up a Ways' are excellent pieces that Basho would come to record again in later years.

A1. Voice Of The Eagle
A2. Wounded Knee Soliloquy
A3. Blue Corn Serenade
B1. Joseph
B2. Omaha Tribal Prayer
B3. Sweet Medicine
B4. Roses And Gold
B5. Moving Up A Ways

flac/16-bit

Robbie Basho - Zarthus

The second of two releases by Basho on the Vanguard label, following 1972's 'The Voice of the Eagle'. This is richly inspired music. Basho (on guitar and piano) drifts from the Cedars of God in Lebanon ('Khalil Gibran') to eastern spiritual sounds ('Khoda é Gul é Abe'), joined by mrdangam drum player Ramnad Raghavan. There is a fine balance here between the guitarist's introspective, finely intricate instrumental pieces and his vocal pieces; the latter bearing closer similarity to traditional western song structure. It is hard not to miss that this is very serious music from a deeply spiritual man, in spite of the various new age trappings here.

1. Zarthus
2. Khoda É Gul É Abe
3. Mehera
4. Khalil Gibran
5. Bride Divine
6. Rhapsody In Druz: Main Theme; Wine Section; Flower Of The Heart; The Flight; Nightingale; Darshan; Ocean Section; Allah Meher; Ships; Baba's Mountain; Look Into Your Heart; March; Rolling Home

flac/16-bit

Robbie Basho - Visions of the Country

"I would paint for you a portrait of North America as a beautiful woman, when she was young and untamed, untrammeled upon and unshamed. Her discipline was natural, her modesty overwhelming. And in the morning she would wash the burning face of the sun with her loving mist and comb his auburn hair with balsam fur: and he would smile upon her, and the day would begin and she would spread her apron for all to gather round her and she would feed the deer and the birds and share her loving heart with all creation. And with breakfast done, she would take her waterjar across her shoulders and off to the fields she would go; the seeds of corn and squash to sow, and she would raise her head to watch the forests weave their silent singing o'er the wind; and she would tickle the streams with magic fingers and feel the waters flow and know the humor of their coursing. And up, up into the afternoon she would saunter, the sweat won her brow, and past the jagged rocks, and past the balsam boughs, and in the shade of cedar she would stop to rest perchance to pray. Could see forget the warmth of sun against her breast all day, and cool of moon against her eyes at night, and sight has fallen into sleep and keep: and awake! and shake! and clear! and down and deep she wonders with the deer, and suppertime is drawing near; and dear it is the broth of sky she drinks and sweet the taste of buttered sun before he sinks (beyond the horizon), ..... and twilight winks his way into her watchful heart, and start the song. For in the evening she would sing oh so sweetly that entire earth would turn on its side the better to hear her: and moon would place his palm against his cheek and weep with deep emotion: for he was an old fellow with white hair, and she made him forget the distance of eons and eons and neutrons and protons. And of course this happened a long time ago before the age of tempered steel and ruffled lace, and outer space. But one can still hear her singing in the high countries of the heart and in the vast canyons of constant memory where the life of a single being is not forgotten nor forsworn and somewhere a child is both, and no where is the blanket torn between thee and me and shining sea and God knows 

earth calls
rain falls
corn grows

loloma, loloma, loloma         kwak kwal" (Robbie Basho. From the liner notes.)

A1. Green River Suite
A2. Rodeo
A3. Rocky Mountain Raga
A4. Variations On Easter
A5. Blue Crystal Fire
B1. Orphan's Lament
B2. Leaf In The Wind
B3. Night Way
B4. Elk Dreamer's Lament
B5. Call On The Wind

flac/16-bit

Tim Hardin 3: Live in Concert

A friend of Karen Dalton's who, sadly, shared her fate. Dalton was the first to perform Hardin's 'Reason to Believe', which we hear a stunning performance of here. Hardin performs both solo and with an excellent 'jazz-esque' combo including bassist Eddie Gomez and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. We can hear moments of magical, natural music here, although, according to Mainieri, Hardin was often "completely strung out" while performing and this particular night was "in terrible shape". Mainieri goes on to say that "what seemed like hesitancy on the part of us 'jazz' musicians was the result of us having to guess when he would strike the next chord or suddenly move to another section of the song." John Martyn, whose live style can perhaps be heard in its primordial form here, was guilty of this and, in the same way, we could easily call to mind Tim Buckley's freewheeling vocals (the substance abuse of both is well documented). Two songs in particular are a frightening insight into the singer's world: 'Lenny's Tune' makes clear reference both to Lenny Bruce's and (briefly) Hardin's heroin use, and 'Tribute to Hank Williams' also eulogises the singer with particular reference to the morphine that killed him. We hear the word morphine over and over. Tim Hardin would die from a heroin overdose in 1980, just over a decade after this concert and just as Bruce had done in 1966 and Williams before him in 1953. In spite of the roughness of Hardin's insobriety, we do hear wonderful, fantastically original music here that at time soars above and always differs in numerous ways not only from the recorded material, but likely from other live renditions also. Alongside Hardin's originals, we hear two very welcome Scott Walker songs: 'The Lady Came from Baltimore' and 'Black Sheep Boy'.

A1. The Lady Came From Baltimore
A2. Reason To Believe
A3. You Upset The Grace Of Living When You Lie
A4. Misty Roses
A5. Black Sheep Boy
A6. Lenny's Tune
B1. Don't Make Promises
B2. Danville Dame
B3. If I Were A Carpenter
B4. Red Balloon
B5. Tribute To Hank Williams
B6. Smugglin' Man

flac/16-bit

Karen Dalton - It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best

The distinctive, stripped-down debut full length of this tragic folk songstress. Dalton is sparsely accompanied here, but more notable is the dazed, dreamlike style of the playing enjoining her pained vocal. A heroin addict and life-long drug user ("even cocaine couldn't ease the pain..."), she stopped performing publicly in the early 70s and died, estranged from her children and family, due to an AIDS-related illness 20 years later. As such, it is no secret that there is real pain in her quietly impassioned bluesy drawl. The closest comparison is with friend and mentor Fred Neil (she sings two of his originals here: 'Blues on the Ceiling and 'Little Bit of Rain'), though her style is very much her own, something that's especially obvious in her adaptions of folk and blues standards (Lead Belly, of course, but a rendition Jelly Roll Morton's 'Sweet Substitute' shows the breadth of her influences and interpretive abilities). This is a rare document of a truly authentic musician who was at the centre of a unique period in musical history, one (for every Paul Simon or Bob Dylan) too often marred by truly tragic tales of substance abuse, depression and commercial neglect.

A1. Little Bit Of Rain
A2. Sweet Substitute
A3. Ribbon Bow
A4. I Love You More Than Words Can Say
A5. In The Evening (It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best)
B1. Blues On The Ceiling
B2. It Hurts Me Too
B3. How Did The Feeling Feel To You
B4. Right, Wrong Or Ready
B5. Down On The Street (Don't You Follow Me Down)

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Nick Drake - Pink Moon

Recorded in two brief late night sesssions, this is the final album from this troubled English singer. Drake's fingerpicked guitar and muffled, sanguine voice surely veiled some spiritual desperation. At twenty-eight minutes in length, with none of the eleven songs longer than four minutes, this a very short album, but Drake packs it with colour and feeling; the same wayward, freewheeling comfort that Dylan originated on "Girl From the North Country". There is plenty of occasion for joy and comfort, as well as for pain, as we hear Drake play his own elegy.

1. Pink Moon
2. Place To Be
3. Road
4. Which Will
5. Horn
6. Things Behind The Sun
7. Know
8. Parasite
9. Ride
10. Harvest Breed
11. From The Morning

flac/24-bit

Hot Women: Women Singers From The Torrid Regions Of The World

Features artwork and notes from legendary cartoonist and obsessive shellac collector Robert Crumb (you can read more about this in his excellent interview with Mats Gustafsson here). This is one of several compilations Crumb has contributed art to, including 2006's "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" on Yazoo, and his own selections on Abrams' "R. Crumb's Heroes Of Blues, Jazz & Country" from the same year. Crumb has always had a fascination with the inate power of the female form, and the striking, butch features of our cover singer here should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the terrific and terrifying forms of his more erotic artwork. Musically speaking, whenever we dive into this era surprises are plentiful. Here is no exception: the theme allows for a broad range of styles, from cajun blues to latin music to Indian and Burmese folk music. There is plenty to relax, move and impress while we imagine ourselves as wayward travelers in a bygone era.

1. Cleoma Falcon - Blues Negres
2. Lydia Mendoza Y Familia - Mexico En Una Laguna
3. Toña La Negra - El Cacahuatero
4. Grupo De 'La Alegria' - El Tambor De La Alegria
5. Leona Gabriel - Liva
6. Araci Côrtes - Quero Sossego
7. Las Cuatro Huasas - La Papa Araucana
8. La Niña De Los Peines - Sevillanas Number 2 (The Girl Of The Combs)
9. Rosina Trubia Gioiosa - Lu Fistinu Di Palermo
10. Rita Abadzi - Mime Stelis Mana Anastin Ameriki
11. Maria Vasileiathou - Arostisa Manoula Mou
12. Cheikha Tetma - Guenene Tini
13. Aïcha Relizania - Khraïfi
14. Julie Marsellaise - Yama N'chauf Haja Tegennen
15. Ayda Sönmez - Neva Hicaz Gazel
16. Hamsa Khalafe & Ali Atia - Ballali Madja
17. Hadija Binti Abdulla - Bina Adamu, Part II
18. Maboudana & Badolo - Chant D'invitation A La Danse
19. Noforonin Dratsiambakaina, Hirain-Drazaivelo & Christine Zanany - Miverena Rahavana
20. Miss Nilam Bai - [Title In Hindustani]
21. Yadana Myit - [Title In Burmese]
22. Cô Ba-Thinh & Khâm-Thîen - Hát Du
23. Emma Bush & Johnny Noble - Lei E
24. Chants Populaires Tahitiens - Chant d'Amour

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Zabelle Panosia - I Am Servant Of Your Voice: April-May, 1917

A voice of stunning fragility. There is a transcendent simplicity to these early recordings that one can only hear in music from this era—comparisons could be drawn with Caruso, or Gina Cigna's staggering 1937 Turandot performance, but even these fall short of the mark. Some songs ("Der Getso") have a familiar western sound, like operatic arias, while others ("Groung", in particular) are entirely foreign to our ears, possessing a warmth and intimacy that seems impossible unless we allow ourselves to believe it. The overwhelming impression is that what we hear here, in an era of so many distractions, is something gone from the world. Such humility, such talent, such understated brilliance and purity of expression seems to only be narrowly approachable in these fallen years.

1. Groung (Earlier Take)
2. In Sireli Zavagounks (Earlier Take)
3. Der Getso
4. Mir Khor Babge Kerezman
5. Caroun
6. Tzain Dour Ov Dzovag
7. In Sireli Zavagounks (Later Take)
8. Groung (Later Take)

mp3/320kbps

Լուսինե Զաքարյան - Armenian Medieval Spiritual Music

"'Amenain Hayots Sokhag' or 'All Armenian Nightingale' Lusine Zakaryan, was born Svetlana Zakaryan, on June 1, 1937 in Akhaltsikhe, Georgian SSR." Sparsely accompanied here by organ and strings, Zakaryan soars through these traditional hymns. The effect is at once deeply familiar yet quite unlike any immediate musical parallel. 

1. Sourb-Sourb
2. Haroutian Meghedi
3. Aravot Louso
4. Ur Es Mair Im
5. Bats Mes Ter
6. Havoun Havoun
7. Khorhourd Khorin
8. Tiramayr
9. Horzham

flac, 16-bit