Earlier this year Dainty Records (“the world’s most fragile recording company”) released a A New Weird UK Sampler which could be downloaded free from Last.Fm. The initiative,not to say realism, of distributing their music in this way is to be applauded as it gives unknown names a unique global platform.
As for the music itself, well, the songs were pleasant enough but it left me wondering how they were defining ‘weird’ and what connection the label thought there was between these assembled artists and the likes of Matt Valentine, Charalambides or even the more accessible Devendra Banhart. On top of this, it was hard to detect any uniquely UK edge to the sound. Frankly, it all sounded worthy but a bit dull.
In marked contrast comes a release to rejoice in. ‘Carbeth’ by Trembling Bells on Honest Jons Records is, I think, destined to be a benchmark album for liberated Brit-folk everywhere.
The Glasgow based band’s goal is set out on their My Space page. They want “to reanimate the psychic landscapes of Great Britain and relocate them to some vague, mythic land where basic human crises are encountered and conquered via a love for canonical rock, traditional folk and Earlie Musik” This is, in other words, no common or garden Merrie Olde maypole swinging fayre. Instead of giving us an airbrushed evocation of heritage culture this is a band who positively revel in earthier Pagan/Celtic traditions.
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