Notes in me head, fiddle tucked under me chin -- all-night dances are always a profitable gig for Danse Macabre as we play mostly up-tempo dance tunes, which make folks happy, and that means they pay very well. Our trick's to 'ave all of 'em on their toes and dancing before they can mumble something about 'two left feet.' The only thing more enjoyable than buskin' is playing a ceilidh or barn dance all night long like the band in Jennifer Stevenson's 'Solstice' story. (Me and me mates call ourselves Danse Macabre when we play as a dance band. 'Tis true that it's a morbid name, but what the hell's wrong with that? Steeleye Span has a song called 'The Shaking of the Sheets' which is but a variation upon the danse macabre!) And indeed the music I'll be looking at in this review is dance music. Green Man gets more than its fair share of great dance music, and reviewing these albums 'tis always a pleasure!
Citizen Camembert's Anchovy Cappuccino is nowhere near as odd as the name might lead you to think. If you've read the reviews that I did of various Blowzabella CDs, you know how much I like that style of 'wall of sound' music. Anchovy Cappuccino is very much in that vein as was Prego's Mocha Express, another of the many oddly named English dance albums seen in this household over the past few years. Citizen Camembert play what has been described as modern self-written and traditional music on traditional instruments. The music has an obvious medieval feel to it with the strongest influence not surprisingly being French. The band consists of Dominic Allan (bagpiper/clarinetist), Max Sweatman (hurdy gurdy), Dave Rowlands (bagpiper and player of various recorders), and Simon Raine (player of the bouzouki, bass & various forms of percussion). This is not quiet dance music; this music is really to kick your heels up from a band of a sense of humour, i.e. two of tunes to me liking are named 'Hound Of The Baskervilles' and 'Resistance Is Useless'! Rumour has it that this music is very popular in English dance circles and this CD shows why! Visit their Web site for more details, including hearing many of their tunes!
Slipping across to France, the source of inspiration of many of the bands reviewed in this article, we find Duo Bertrand and their magnificent CD, Musiques d'hier pour Aujourd'hui. Me language de carrefour French leads me to translate the title of the CD as Music Of Yesterday For Today. Unlike the aforementioned Citizen Camembert, this is but a two-person operation with a piper (Thierry Bertrand) and an accordionist (Sébastien Bertrand). However, I was pleasantly surprised at how full their music sounded. Theirry with his nephew Sebastien play a lovely collection of upbeat and interesting dances and melodies from the Breton-Vendée border area. Unlike Bagad Kemper which has a really bombastic sounds 'cause of the drum kit, this is really sweet music that doesn't attempt to overwhelm the listener.
The same applies to the duo of Yann-Fanch Perroches and Fanch Landreau and their CD, Daou-ha-daou, which was released by Keltia Musique, one of the best sources of Breizh music that one could hope to find. This duo says in their liner that all there is 'An accordion. A violin. A microphone. No tricks. We play, that's all.' Veterans of the leading Breizh band Skolvan, what you hear here is just two musicians playing traditional tunes and their own compositions without fear of having to anything more than what they are: two damn fine musicians who know they are two damn fine musicians! Slow airs, fast reels, and everything in between -- the discriminating listener will find it here. If you live in North America, you can get Keltia Musique releases from Portland America, a very fine source of Celtic music CDs!
And there's a decided French feel to jabadaw's self-titled debut release. The band was formed in 1994 by Simon Dew (tin whistle, the flute, and soprano saxophone) and Martin Keates (mainly the hurdy-gurdy, but also piano), who have both worked with many folk dance bands in the North of England. Nigel Eaton, a more than merely accomplished hurdy-gurdy player says of this band: they are ''Excellent ... a really cool band' and he's right. Their sound, to quote me dear wife Brigid, is somewhere between Blowzabella and the Moving Hearts in their instrumental persona. Now given that they play 'New French Polkas' on this CD that sounds like it could have been written by the blokes in Blowzabella, this is not a surprise. Other French cuts on this exemplary CD include 'Bourrée Droite / Bourée à 3 Temps', ''Laridé à 6 Temps / Hanter Dro' and 'Dans-Tro Plinn.' Like Anchovy Cappuccino, this uptempo dance music that is best played loud. (Me neighbours in the flat below are out for the afternoon, so only our felines are 'round to hear this!) 'Tis interesting to note the blokes consider themselves to be a ceilidh band! Now if you can tell a ceilidh band from a band dance group from an American contra dance band from a Breizh fez noz group, you are doing better than this fiddler is. All I know is that jabadaw would be a pleasure to play with on a long summer evening when the dancers are ready to do a half hannkin in the proper fashion!
Kick Shins only has a mere smidgen of French in their music -- surprisin' given the other groups this review has mentioned so far. And this barn dance band has more of a Central European feel to it which is rather refreshing. Their most excellent Web site notes they are 'a barn dance band from around Berkshire, UK. The band started in about 1981. We started playing English traditional music, but now also include music from Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany and other countries. The name comes from an old Wokingham custom. In between cock fights in Wokingham, people would try the sport of shin kicking. They would grab each other by the shoulders and try to kick each other's shins. The loser had the most bruises or blood! The instruments we play include keyboard, fiddle, melodeon, bodhran, accordion, guitar, recorder, trumpet, tambourine and hurdy gurdy. The band originated out of Berkshire Bedlam Morris, so our roots are in traditional English music ... ' Of the groups reviewed thus far, Kick Shins is, to me ear, the most English sounding. Even with the French and other European influences, they sound like the band on the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album -- You just know these blokes are English born and bred. And this is definitely a good sized band -- guitars, bajolins, hammered dulcimers, concertinas, harmonicas, fiddles, pianos, melodeons, and so forth are all part of the instrumental stew here. Both Dkyk Shynski and Lunch with Sweeny Todd are 'tasty' albums well-worth you picking up for your own listening pleasure! You can order the CDs from their website.
All Blacked Up's Spirits of Another Sort is from a band that says of itself '[a]lthough we still think of ourselves as an English country dance band, a quick glance at the source of these tunes reveals an eclecticism that would appear to belie this. What is English music anyway? We found our best answer in a novel by Peter Ackroyd (called, surprisingly enough, English Music) where he tells us '...It is perfectly clear to me now that English music rarely changes. The instruments may alter and the form may vary, but the spirit seems always to remain the same.'' And the title of Spirits of Another Sort 'tis rather fitting as that what Oberon says to Puck in A Midsommer Nights Dreame when asked what they, the fey ones, are. This is fey music for a midsummers eve -- light, bouncy, and quite spirited! What you get is a mix of trad tunes ('Ballyvournie Polka/Johnnie Mickie Barries' and 'Mazurka') and material of a more modern nature such as 'The Beano Annual General Meeting.' If Kick Shins comes off as something that the Beatles might have thought up if they'd been slightly older, All Blacked Up comes off as a band aware that's really no such creature that can be rigidly English music, but rather everything is in one form or another English music! Alla Blacked Up also has a cassette-only release called Say I Am Dancing that has more more of thier exceedingly tasty music on it.
No one could doubt that the Red Geckoes (consisting of Andy Cheyneon on bass guitars, acoustic guitar, mandolin, bouzouki and fiddle; Andy Turner on anglo concertinas and one-row melodeon; Caroline Ritson on fiddle; Dave Parry on melodeons; and Tom Miller on electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards) are completely English to the very core of their being. Their Web site notes that the 'Geckoes are in the front rank of the bands on the English Ceilidh scene. Evolving out of the country dances of the British Isles, Europe and America, the style of dancing is typified by its exuberance and Geckoes' music has all the energy and style that it takes to fill a floor with hundreds of delighted -- if somewhat sweaty -- dancers. Geckoes are a favourite attraction at dance clubs and regularly bring their exciting music to major folk festivals including Sidmouth, Towersey, Warwick, Whitby ... and many others. What catches me ear is how clean they sound -- no overdubbing, no obvious studio work after the fact -- just good, lively tunes played just fast 'enough to make the dancers sweat bleedin' good! Everything from waltzes to FHL (Faster Louder Harder) jigs is here. And me fellow musicians should note that as a rather nice bonus, The Red Horse includes all the tunes in abc format. (Windows users only!) The hybrid format of this CD may cause some Mac computers to refuse to play this CD, but me iBook was fine with it. An older Mac here wouldn't recognize the disc at all! All thirteen of the cuts here are simply superb. If you like English dance music, you must have this CD!
I finish off this look at dance music with a look at <b>Against the Sun</b>, a lively album from a group called Widdershins. Their Web site comments that 'The band was formed more than 15 years ago and was called The Broadgate Band named after the local farm in Westerdale in whose barn it first performed. Two of the original members Adrian and Dave (men of the moors) then met up with Gillian and Nigel from Robin Hood's Bay (folk of the coast) making Widdershins with its powerful magic, its dancing in circles and its association with both sea and the moors a good name for a local ceilidh band. The band consists of Adrian Hopley (melodeon and concertina), Dave Chapman (bass and mandolin), Gillian Edwards (fiddle and recorder), Phil Moore (piano -- well, more in the nature of keyboards) and Jack Gibson (percussion). Against the Sun contains music from the Celtic tradition such as 'The Road to Lisdoonvarna' -- a common occurance which can also be seen on Snout by Rodger the Badger -- as well as Scottish Fiddler Sandy Mathers'tune 'Repeal the Poll Tax' and the traditional 'Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.' If you like dance music, you'll love this CD!
That's it for time. Danse Macabre's getting ready for another all-night midsummer dance, so I need to wrap this up now. May you find a place for you and your friends to dance the night away on this midsummer's eve!
