Tag Archives: Tom Kitching

Latest folk reviews: Ímar, Westward The Light, James Kerry, Neil Pearlman and Owen Moore

Album reviews, Folk music, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ímar – Awakening

Awakening is the third album from Glasgow-based folk aces, Ímar – their first in five years. Featuring Mohsen Amini (concertina), Tomas Callister (fiddle), Adam Rhodes (bouzouki), Ryan Murphy (pipes, flute and whistle) and Adam Brown (bodhran, guitar), the album (featuring cover art of the 9th century king from which the band takes its name) offers up ten tracks of mainly original tunes.

Mohsen Amini: “The idea behind this album was to take it back to where we came in with all the vibes of our debut album, Afterlight. As the band progressed, the music became more produced. We loved it but we never had more enjoyment that those original days at the inception of Ímar.”

Fresh, exhilarating and inventive, Awakening sees Ímar take us on a breathtaking ride through a stunning new collection of tunes that both showcase their virtuosity while giving every impression of a band having a huge load of fun during the making of it.

Released: 21 April 2023 https://www.imarband.com/

Westward The Light – Flow Country

Westward The Light are Charlie Grey, Sally Simpson, Owen Sinclair and Joseph Peach. Formed in 2018, the band have won acclaim on the folk scene for their innovative arrangements of Scottish traditional tunes on fiddle, viola, piano and guitar. Flow Country, named after the region of rolling peatland between Caithness and Sutherland, is their second album.

Joseph Peach: “Flow Country is a record on which the tune takes precedence. There are no gimmicks, there’s jus straight up traditional music which we feel really captures the essence of our Scottish culture and heritage.”

A lovely collection of tunes that instantly transport the listener to the rugged landscapes and long-cherished musical heritage of the north of Scotland and which showcase some stunning interactions between these highly-skilled instrumentalists, Flow Country leaves its mark from the very first listen.

Released: 31 March 2023 https://westwardthelight.com/

James Kerry – Source

Still only in his mid-20s, melodeon-player and composer, James Kerry, has been a noted presence on the UK folk scene, playing at festivals such as Warwick Folk Festival and Broadstairs Folk Week and establishing a reputation for passionate, rhythmic playing rooted in the folk dance tradition. Source is Kerry’s first solo project and features mainly traditional English tunes with a handful of original compositions and a couple of contemporary pieces by other writers thrown in as well.

“Source is a true representation of James’ style and passions and reflects his huge respect for traditional music and his desire to pass it on,” we are told in the album sleeve-notes.

A fine showcase for James Kerry’s skilful playing, supporters of traditional English dance tunes will simply love this album – which also boasts a stunning line-up supporting musicians  in Tom Kitching, James Delarre and Danny Tonks.

Released: 1 April 2023 https://jameskerrymusic.com/

Neil Pearlman – Refractions

Neil Pearlman is best known for his ground-breaking approach to the piano in Celtic music. In that capacity he tours regularly with Kevin Henderson, Katie McNally, The Pine Tree Flyers, and as a solo pianist, while playing more irregularly with a wide variety of side projects featuring top Celtic, Americana and Jazz musicians. His latest project, Refractions, is a collection of traditional Scottish and Gaelic tunes, arranged especially for solo performance on the piano.

Neil Pearlman: “The choice to focus on traditional Scottish  melodies is my way of paying respect to my roots. Traditional Scottish tunes are some of the very first music I ever heard or played, so going into that repertoire and having a conversation with it as the artist I am today was a powerful experience, and a good way to explore both who I am now and where I come from.”

Some of the tunes on Refractions are familiar, others less so, but what Pearlman does throughout the whole album is find the inherent beauty in each individual tune and present them in an entirely new light. It makes for a poignant and highly intimate album with some exceptional playing.

Released: 5 May 2023 https://neilpearlman.com/

Owen Moore – Songs From The Shamrock Bar

And finally, while there’s been a heavy focus on instrumental albums in this latest round-up, the ever industrious Irish-born, Dorset-based singer songwriter Owen Moore also has a new album out, another compilation – this one with an Irish theme.

Owen Moore: “My new album is called Songs From The Shamrock Bar and is an anthology of recordings that have all appeared on previous Owen Moore albums and singles over the past ten years or so. All of the songs have a link of some sort with Ireland, which is where I was born (70 plus years ago) and many of them take a nostalgic look at days gone by.”

Always entertaining, with a penchant for engaging storytelling, catchy melodies and gentle guitar picking, Owen Moore’s own brand of Americana-infused singer-songwriting with that special touch of Celtic magic is very much on display here.

Released: 17 March 2023 http://www.owenmooremusic.com/

Book review: ‘Seasons of Change – Busking England’ by Tom Kitching

Book reviews, Folk music, Music culture & history, , , , ,

When the EU referendum result didn’t go quite the way I wanted it my reaction was to consume excess amounts of alcohol and spend the next few weeks swearing at every news bulletin that came on. Fiddle player, Tom Kitching, however took a different and altogether more constructive approach. Realising that he didn’t know England half as well as thought he did, Kitching resolves to travel around the country, busking wherever he goes and writing a blog of his experiences. The blog eventually became this book. An accompanying album of tunes (reviewed here) was also recently released.

My initial assumption about a travelogue written by a folk musician is that it would be very much led by the music. We’d get a short history to a particular folk song or tune, some background info about how it was linked to a particular area and then a few modern-day observations of the place today to bring us up to date. But the book is not like that at all. Although busking is the focus of the trips, and the means by which he pays for his meals and accommodation each day, the book is ostensibly about people.

Some of the places he visits I know extremely well: Hastings where I live now, Deptford where I spent twenty-odd years and Hull where I spent some time in the 80s and where my partner’s parents still live – and I found his observations to be thoughtful and convincing. Other places he visits I am far less familiar with like Easington Colliery, West Bromwich and Bradford, the latter providing one of the most touching scenes in the book as a black family, some Asian kids and some white kids all start dancing in the street to Kitching’s fiddle-playing, the adults all chatting and shaking hands with one another. “If I’d been able to guarantee this sort of result to the arts council before I’d set off on my project I’d be arriving here in a solid gold Rolls Royce,” he notes.

He visits well-off villages and impoverished towns and is often insightful in his observations on failed regeneration schemes and deepening political neglect, yet at the same time pragmatically optimistic about how things could be different. There is some meanness from some of the people he comes across along the way, particularly in attitudes to those who are homeless and (along with buskers) are also trying to eke out an income on the streets. Overall, however, there’s a huge amount of warmth and some lovely conversations that are recounted.

Even if you have zero interest in folk music or fiddle-playing ‘Seasons of Change – Busking England’ is a fascinating and compelling read.

Published by Scratching Shed Publishing Ltd – 2020

Seasons -Of-Change-book

Related posts:

Tom Kitching – Seasons of Change – album review

Pilgrims’ Way – Stand and Deliver 

Gavin Davenport & Tom Kitching at Warwick Folk Festival

 

 

Folk: album review – Tom Kitching ‘Seasons of Change’

Album reviews, Folk music, Music culture & history, , , , ,

Two years ago fiddle-player Tom Kitching, known for his work with Gren Bartley and for being part of Pilgrims’ Way, started a blog and announced he was going on a journey.

“The sense of not knowing my own country was brought home to me by the referendum result. Virtually all my friends voted to remain, but England as a whole had other ideas. Clearly, the English are a much more complex and varied group than the people around me,” he states in his very first post back in April 2018, adding that he was aiming to travel across England, busking in towns, villages, and cities each day.

Kitching’s travels continued for well over a year and the blog eventually morphed into a book. The busking, meanwhile, ended up turning into an album – which is precisely what we are reviewing here. Recorded as live in Danebridge Methodist Chapel, Staffordshire in December 2019, some eighteen months after his journey began, Seasons of Change brings together eleven tunes mixing traditional tunes with Kitching’s own material. Essentially, a mixture of tunes from his busking repertoire along with new compositions inspired by his round-England trip.

Past collaborator Marit Fält accompanies Kitching on Nordic mandola and cittern and Pilgrim’s Way bandmate Jude Rees also joins him on English border bagpipes.
With morris tunes, reels, jigs, polkas and hornpipes it’s a wonderfully varied set of tunes in terms of tempo and pace, not to mention geographical origin. The album takes us on a journey starting with ‘Old Molly Oxford’ right up to ‘Old Age and Young’ from John Offord’s ‘Bonny Cumberland’ tunebook. There’s even a peek over the channel with the final track. The old French tune ‘La Fanatique’ is paired with Kitching’s own ‘Infinite Espresso’ inspired by an incident in a dockers’ cafe in Harwich, which Kitching assures us in the sleeve-notes we need to buy the book if we want to find out the full story.

Beautifully played and absolutely fascinating in equal measure Tom Kitching has created a real delight with his Seasons of Change album. Now all I need to do is order the book…

Released: 17th April 2020

Book, blog and album all available via http://www.tomkitching.co.uk/

tom k

Related reviews:

Book review: ‘Seasons of Change – Busking England’ by Tom Kitching

Pilgrims’ Way – Stand and Deliver 

Gavin Davenport & Tom Kitching at Warwick Folk Festival

 

Folk: album review – Pilgrims’ Way ‘Stand & Deliver’

Album reviews, Folk music, , , , ,

This review was originally published by Bright Young Folk here

Following two previous albums (2011’s Wayside Courtesies and 2016’s Red Diesel) north west-based band Pilgrims’ Way are back with a third. There has been a line-up change since the last one, with Jude Rees now joining Tom Kitching, Edwin Beasant and Jon Loomes, but there has been no let-up in the band’s trademark vigour and verve.

Stand and Deliver is a concept album of sorts, that brings together a selection of traditional highwayman songs, always a rich and enduring source of material in English folk.

The album promises fifty different instruments across its eleven tracks and we hear oboe, bagpipes, flutes, recorders, hurdy gurdy, Jews’ harp, harmonica, concertina and melodeon, to name a few, as well as guitars, bass, drums and percussion.

In addition, the band cite almost as diverse a list of musical genres influencing their interpretations as they do instruments; from classic-era folk rock, through to Madchester, doom metal, disco and West End musicals.

The juxtaposition of the vocals of the three male members of the band alongside new member, Jude Rees, also adds to that sense of variety and contrast.

It is an ambitious project, for sure, and there could be a danger of something like this lacking coherence but the enthusiasm of the band and their combined musical talents definitely carry it through.

Material-wise, there is plenty that many folk fans will be familiar with, but the band definitely put their own stamp on well-known songs like Ibson, Gibson, Johnson and Cadgwith Anthem.

A sonically-menacing Saucy Bold Robber, with an arrangement inspired by a folk take on doom metal with some great vocals from Rees, is also another highlight.

The album finishes up with a spirited, tongue-in-cheek cover of the 1981 chart hit Stand and Deliver. How could any album about dandy highwaymen fail to pay tribute to Adam and the Ants?

Stand and Deliver is an ambitious album that is executed with style and panache. While there are obvious echoes back to some of the folk-rock albums of the classic early 70s period there is also something fresh, innovative and daring about Pilgrims’ Way that make this album a delight to listen to.

Released 20th October 2017

http://www.pilgrims-way.net/

standanddeliver_pilgrimsway

 

Gavin Davenport at Warwick Folk Festival 25/7/14

Folk music, Live reviews, , , , ,

I missed the Gavin Davenport Band gig at this year’s Warwick Folk Festival because, as is the case at so many music festivals, there was an inevitable clash between two acts I really wanted to see. Thankfully, however, Davenport put in another appearance earlier in the day, this time accompanied by fiddle player, Tom Kitching, rather than his full band. We watch the gig in the staggeringly well-equipped Bridge House Theatre, which is part of Warwick School – site of the festival (the luxuriousness of a private education I suppose…)

Davenport’s distinctive vocals were a notable feature of the recently reconstituted Albion Band, which is how I first became familiar with him. But today he concentrates on material from his solo career, including some of his excellent interpretations of traditional songs from his last solo album, The Bone Orchard. We thus get to hear songs like Creeping Jane, a traditional horseracing song collected by Edwardian song-collector, Percy Grainger. We also get to hear the self-penned title track of his solo album. The title was inspired, Davenport tells us, by his time working in a pub and the wonderfully colourful description that the domino-playing elderly Caribbean clientele gave to the local cemetery.

Davenport’s deep, bold, powerful vocal s are perhaps more traditional-sounding than many of his contemporaries on the modern folk scene. But he always avoids lapsing into cliché and his delivery suits the material perfectly.  Davenport’s guitar and concertina playing also adds extra depth and beauty to several of the songs. Kitching, too, is an excellent fiddle player and the two work extremely well together. The audience in the packed (but thankfully air-conditioned) theatre on this blazing July afternoon respond enthusiastically.  This was one of the highlights of the 2014 Warwick Folk Festival for me.

http://www.gavindavenport.com/