Music Review

02 December 2008 02:08 BST

Bellowhead: Matachin

Navigator Records, out September 22nd.

In a nutshell…

Delicate, raucous, jazz folk cabaret.

What's it all about?

Bellowhead are an 11-strong troupe led by the troubadour duo of Jon Boden and John Spiers. describing themselves as "English World music".

After causing quite the rumpus with their 2004 debut at the Oxford Folk Festival, their freshman album in 2006, Burlesque, was well-received by the critics. They've also followed in the platform-shoed footsteps of St Etienne by becoming the South Bank Centre's Band in Residence and recently went down a storm at the Proms.

Mixing pastoral English baroque with strings and brass, Matachin roams from carnival ballads to sea shanties to theatrical ghost stories.

The 13-song album is broken up by short "vignettes" that act as intervals in what feels like a travelling show of songs literally dug out from old library books and, in the finest traditions of folk, handed down through the generations.

Who's it by?

The Bellowhead crew won critical acclaim for Burlesque - it was described by Allmusic as the sort of album you'd get if Tom Waits turned his hand to olde England's tunes.

Now with Matachin (it's Arabic, or Italian, or something to do with elaborate Spanish dancing...or something) they've assembled guitars, fiddles, mandolins, trombones, concertinas, banjos, trumpets and much more besides to craft a set of songs and suites with Hickcockian vocals (Robyn, not Sir Alfred), rich harmonies and tall tales.

As an example...

"The band's a-doin' all they can to cheers/The chaplain's gone and prayed to Gawd to 'ear us/O Lord, for it's a-killin' of us all!" (the Rudyard Kipling-penned Cholera Camp)

Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys

Bellowhead's contemporary twists on traditional songs have already won them critical acclaim - the ensemble were named Radio 2's live act of the year after rocking many a festival. With Matachin, they look set for more garlands and the token folkie nomination for next year's Mercury may already be sewn up.

What the others say

"Matachin remains a triumphant expedition into the past, which for all the antiquity of its songs is also a thoroughly modern piece of music-making - as its title suggests, cutting edge." - Neil Spencer, Observer

"The 11-piece English folk band have returned to the music-making fold with a bewildering cacophony of sound which is the epitome of anti-mainstream." - Music Magazine

So is it any good?

In some ways, Bellowhead have taken a meticulous approach to this album - as evidenced by the liner notes, which detail the known history of each song. On occasion, this can stretch back hundreds of years, whereas others go only as far as someone's grandad from Norwich.

Yet for all the bookish precision in the research, the band avoid the prissy niggling of the beardy real ale crowd with their execution. These old songs are delivered with a sense of showmanship and fun, from the sing-a-long Roll Her Down The Bay to the vaudevillian interpretation of Rudyard Kipling's Cholera Camp to the hey-nonny-no hoedown of Whiskey Is The Life Of Man.

And while the band are capable of creating a raucous, loose racket - with an impressive variety of instruments, to boot - they also apply a lot of light and shade, with arrangements that build and fall nicely. Even at it's most experimental, the album is engaging.

Bellowhead's unique interpretations, free-roaming influences and Fairport Convention-style musicianship make these long-lost songs sound ancient and immediate. Definitely worth a spin.

8/10

Andy Jowett