Thursday 15 November 2012

Hladowski & Joynes - The Wild Wild Berry



Folk Roots

I seem to be in a folk/roots music frame of mind at the moment. No particular reason. It’s what I have been listening to and that’s what I write about – a more straightforward and apt cause and effect for this blog [see previous Queen post].

This album is as simple and traditional and excellent as it gets. Stephanie Hladowski has a tangy vocal so it can sear the ear but I like it. Chris Joynes plucks mainly guitar but also pumps a harmonium and his understated playing provides a consistently firm platform for the singing. The 11 traditional songs are all gathered from, apparently, Cecil Sharp House, home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society [and where the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library is kept as I have just been reading on their web site], and this resource speaks volumes for the temperance and perhaps even reverence of the performances. That said, they still have a modern feel and I am totally unable to explain that paradox. So won’t.

 

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