matt b
Indexing all opinion
Went to see The Unthanks last night with some trepidation- Whilst their 'The Bairns' LP got a fair bit of play round here (my better half being from the same part of the world), I always felt they were a little bit gimmicky with an overuse of 'bairn' and 'hinnie' etc.
I had avoided hearing their new LP for such reasons.
But fuck me, the show was absolutely stunning.
Most of the songs were from the folk canon (including Ewen MacColl and Anne Briggs), but they do a similar thing that Fairport did on Leige and Leif mixing modern techniques/styles (Robert Wyatt /Michael Nyman) with the old, without compromising the meaning of the song itself.
Probably the best song was this, based on an interview 17 year old Patience Kershaw gave to the 1842 Children's Employment Commission, which sums up this approach.
She was a hurryer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrying.
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They also did a 3 part a capella off mic, with the lights turned really low, which was awesome.
So we bought the new LP, which features most of the stuff played last night and it too is pretty tasty, although it doesn't reach the same heights as the live versions.
They've been nominated for a load of BBC Folk Awards this year too.
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I had avoided hearing their new LP for such reasons.
But fuck me, the show was absolutely stunning.
Most of the songs were from the folk canon (including Ewen MacColl and Anne Briggs), but they do a similar thing that Fairport did on Leige and Leif mixing modern techniques/styles (Robert Wyatt /Michael Nyman) with the old, without compromising the meaning of the song itself.
Probably the best song was this, based on an interview 17 year old Patience Kershaw gave to the 1842 Children's Employment Commission, which sums up this approach.
She was a hurryer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrying.
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They also did a 3 part a capella off mic, with the lights turned really low, which was awesome.
So we bought the new LP, which features most of the stuff played last night and it too is pretty tasty, although it doesn't reach the same heights as the live versions.
They've been nominated for a load of BBC Folk Awards this year too.
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