JOSHUA ARNOLD AND THERINE – Folk Music of the British Isles: The Dark and Macabre, Vol. 1 (own label)

The Dark and Macabre Vol 1The follow-up to last year’s A Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, The Dark And Macabre Vol 1 finds the north west experimental folk duo digging deep into British traditional folk music themed around supernatural forces. It opens with ‘Intro (The Devil’s Dream)’, a droning soundscape of Gregorian funeral chants looped on cassettes, backing a version of the Playford tune on hurdy gurdy. An English Passion carol based on the gospel of John telling of Mary’s journey to see her son at Calvary, attended by seven virgins. There’s more drones from harmoniums and microtonal dulcimers along with Therine’s echoey vocals in their reworking of Norma Waterson’s version of ‘Seven Virgins (The Leaves of Life)’.

Again dipping into the Waterson/Carthy well, featuring just Arnold’s minimal guitar and James Brown on whistling saw, ‘Death And The Lady’ speaks of a young woman’s encounter with Death with the inevitable results. The instrumentation and delivery dark and intense as the subject matter warrants, featuring hammered dulcimer, toy piano, upright bass, bowed bass, banjo, harmonium and drums, ‘Boys of Bedlam’ dating from at least 1851 and sung in the voice of one of the ‘harmless incurables’.

Vaguely pastoral in comparison, a sparse, mournful lament featuring Charli Wild on viola with Arnold on banjitar, pizzicato cello and violin, the murder ballad ‘Poor Murdered Woman’ dates from 1834, written by Leatherhead Common brickmaker Mr Fairs based on events reported in The Times of that January 1834, involving the decomposing body of an unidentified victim with a severe head wound, and arrived in the duo’s repertoire via Shirley Collins.

The first of two very familiar tunes, this drawing on a version of The Young Tradition, sung unaccompanied (and echoingly multi-tracked) and in dialect by Therine, ‘Lyke Wake Dirge’ has its origins in Elizabethan Yorkshire and, often serving as a funeral song, tells of a departed soul on its hazardous journey to Purgatory. Again featuring just her soaring voice, ‘Maids Lament’ is another of Yorkshire provenance, a lament for lost love that takes its arrangement from that of A.L. Lloyd 1956 version.

It’s the first of three that clock in at under two minutes, the next, Wild again on viola, being a heavily percussive take on the Scottish counter-clockwise country dance number ‘Witches Reel’ which dates from 1591 and the North Berwick Witch Trials , the words taken from one of the transcripts. It’s not sung in Gaelic but the dialect and Therine’s terrific delivery certainly gives that impression.

The title track returns to the album’s intro, the hurdy gurdy replaced by hammered dulcimer, guitar, drums and recorders for a steady-paced lolloping instrumental that has a sly undertone of diabolic mischief. It heads to a close with the second traditional staple, the infanticide-themed ‘Cruel Mother’ given a broadly accented delivery that nods to its assumed Scottish origins, Therine’s powerful vocals complemented by an arrangement part Collins and part Anne Briggs that has Arnold on 12-string acoustic, Wild’s viola and Cai Jones on mandolin. Joined by Brown on accordion, Arnold on octave mandolin, drums and banjo and Therine on recorders, the latter two also bring bold colour to the rousing instrumental finale with Irish double jig, ‘Lilting Banshee’, again suggesting that the devil does indeed have all the best tunes.

A terrific addition to the traditional catalogue and, as the title notes, just the first of what they promise to be several volumes spaced between their original material.

Mike Davies

Artists’ website: www.joshuaarnoldandtherine.bandcamp.com

‘Boys Of Bedlam’:

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