I sometimes dream of an England where it's always Sunday afternoon, where the sun is always shining, and I'm sitting on the neatly trimmed grass outside a country pub, sipping from a glass of fresh lemonade. What can bring such dreams? Discs like these three, full of good traditional English music. I think that it's the major keys and the accordions or melodeons that give these discs their distinctive flavour, as opposed to the minor keys and pipes/whistles/flutes of Scottish or Irish music.

Bricks and Mortar are a hard-working ceilidh band based in the Liverpool area; they have a small website [www.thebarndanceband.com], which contains a page of biography, and a page about their disc, Two Left Feet (which is available for purchase on their site). Two of the tracks can be downloaded in mp3 format, and I suggest that one does so, in order to get a taste of their music. There are several familiar tunes on this instrumental disc, including a couple of O'Carolan tunes ("Si Bheag, Si Mhor"), "Foxhunter's" (instantly recognizable as being part of Fairport's "Liege And Lief" medley," "Stingo" (also to be found on Eliza Carthy's "Red" album) and "Sir Roger de Coverley," which I first came across years ago on the now unobtainable Compleat Dancing Master.

All five members of this group are multi-instrumentalists whose talents cover the guitar, bass, keyboards, mandolin, melodeon, fiddle, flute, recorder, clarinet and percussion. This wide range gives the tracks variation in sound, and must make watching the group an interesting experience! Musically Two Left Feet reminded me of the original Albion Band's Batttle Of The Field, which is really where English music came of age. Definitely recommended.

Also recommended, but less enjoyable, is Scanned by Will Duke and Dan Quinn. As the subtitle ("Music For Lungs And Bellows") suggests, the instrumentation consists solely of vocals, concertinas and melodeons; the sound is thus lacking the variation that a larger group can bring. There are 17 tracks on this disc which plays for a very respectable 59 minutes; the majority of tracks are instrumental, whereas some (including the opening "Here We Are") feature unaccompanied singing. The concertina and melodeon bring to mind a Morris side, and for me conjure up some of the tracks on Morris On.

The name of Scan Tester occurs several times over the course of the disc,with a variety of song forms including polkas, marches and schottisches. As the sleeve notes comments, "[these] can all be found, played by the great man himself, on Topic's excellent double album. Will owns one of Scan's concertinas and plays it here." The notes provide an intelligent provenance of all of the tunes, and whilst they might be on the brief side, they are worth reading.

Completing this quick tour of English music is Flowers & Frolics by Reformed Characters. Both this and the preceding disc are released by Hebe Music, a record company based in unfashionable Brighton who would seem to be purveyors of "real" English music. The cover picture shows six middle-aged men playing an intriguing range of instruments: on the left there are tuba, banjo and drums, whereas on the right hand side is the "wind section" - two melodeons and a concertina. The sleeve notes note that the group formed in 1975 and lasted barely two years; 25 years later they decided to reform and record some of the old tunes. The rest of the notes give the impression -- borne out by the music - that this was an outfit which existed primarily to give fun and enjoyment to its audience and to themselves without too deep a musical commitment.

I quite enjoyed most of the instrumental songs on this disc (including one written by Scan Tester), but was disappointed by the vocal parts. The voices themselves were not distinctive, and the choice of material (including The Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" and Tom Robinson's "Martin") was somewhat bizarre and unconvincing. I have no doubt that I would enjoy a live performance by this ensemble (if they are still appearing), but on disc I find them cumbersome and unattractive.

[No'am Newman]