Peter Knight has created a space for himself in the history of folk rock by his long membership of Steeleye Span. Joining the group right after the first LP and still being there means that anything Knight releases must be looked upon as having some significance in the world of English folk. Therefore I have chosen to give you a track-by-track view of his new album. But first a word of critisism: nowhere on the sleeve is there any mention of who plays what on the album. Maybe this is a signal that Knight performs everything himself, and there are signs of that, but this is not confirmed on the sleeve, nor on his Web site.

"The Lark in the Morning", one of two traditional tunes, start the album. It is not the jig of the same name, but an air, closely related to the song with that name that appeared on Steeleye Span's second album. Knight starts with the tune and adds variations to it and fiddle sounds impersonating larks. With piano chords and two fiddles it is a slow air with the bowing creating a broad, almost melodramatic sound. Nice starter.

"Sharpe Goes Walkabout" must be a tribute to Cecil Sharp, one of the big collectors of traditional song and music. It starts with a basic drone groove on bass and percussion with some rhythmic fiddle sounds added. It is an overlong intro, stretching out over two minutes. When you are just giving up hope of a tune appearing it arrives. It is a simple tune, more like an exercise on scales than a proper tune. The rest of the weight minutes shows a pattern of the tune being mixed with non melodic interludes of varying length.

"Powdered Wigs and Fountains" is a very slow track showcasing Peter Knight the string trio. It is a slow neoclassic piece in 4/4 with a strong emphasis on the 1st and 2nd beats of each bar. Quite short by the standards of this album, just three and a half minutes, it works quite well.

Next comes nearly five minutes of "The Water Carriers" with double tracked, harsh-sounding fiddles. It is more of a folky tune, graced with the kind of slurs you would expect a fiddler to produce while warming up his fingers for a concert or a recording. It is OK as an intro to some longer piece, but it never really takes off as a track off its own.

The second traditional piece is "Betsy Bell and Mary Grey", as a song recorded once by Maddy Prior and Tim Hart. Once again the foundation is laid by a drone bass with just one fiddle playing the tune with variations and some improvisation. On this slow tune Knight uses varying intensity in his playing as a weapon, sometimes attacking the bow and the strings as playing in anger, at other times holding back. This creates welcome tensions, both between the way the tune is sometimes played and the repetitive bass drone, and between the dramatic and the more lyrical sections of the track. But once again, eight minutes plus is too much. Had Knight cut it in half it could have been a real stand out track.

"Lisinsky" features a drone bagpipe sound with percussion providing a rhythm reminiscent of medieval dance tunes. For the first two minutes the fiddle sounds almost hesitant, as if wondering if to start a proper tune or not. Then the track turns into a set of jigs, played in a laid back, non-aggressive fashion, sounding like someone is browsing through a tune book looking for pieces to play. Not bad, but lacking of fire.

"Katrina of Moorpark" is a similar track, this time substituting jigs for reels and this time jumping straight into the tines. Along the way a keyboard joins, providing some proper chords as a welcome contrast to the drone background. Quite charming, but once again, it is too long to hold my attention all the way through.

Percussion and pizzicato fiddle sounds start off "Too Late For Shadows". A very jazzy bowed fiddle joins, adding tune like passages, staying in the background at first, but gradually taking steps forward in the sound picture. The track has a basic up tempo rhythm and is the first one to make me tap my feet. Some of the passages are very attractive, almost childishly naive tune snippets. But, you have guessed it, over long -- it needs to have the seven minutes cut to four or five.

"Moulin Rouge" is something completely different, the shortest and most well structured track on the album. A charming swinging 4/4-tune performed in the style of Grappeli and Reinhardt, making me longing for a repeat of the wonderful Woodhouse TV-series starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. Proper rhythm, proper chords and a proper melody. Not a second too long, it's the stand out track on the album, which finishes with a reprise of "The Lark in the Morning". Usually you would expect the reprise to be a short reminder, but not on this album.

My final verdict is that this is an album that would have fared well being more strictly edited. Keeping the same tracks and tunes, but giving us around 40 minutes instead of 56 would have made a great effect. Instead Knight goes too much for repetitiveness, probably hoping to create a hypnotic effect, but instead running the risk of boring the listener. In my experience the best way of keeping the attention of your audience is to leave them wanting more, not giving them all you have got. Knight often gives us more than we have asked for. As you have guessed by now, I am more than a bit disappointed. I expected a great deal more than this from one of my big heroes in music, and instead of getting an album that would make me want to come back for more details time after time, I got an album that will do nicely when I am washing the dishes or ironing the laundry.

[ Lars Nilsson]