A welcome knock on effect of the New Weird neo-folk Stateside phenomena is that the largely forgotten women of the 1960s UK folk-blues scene like Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins are getting a long overdue reappraisal.
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset’s brilliant new album (‘The Bairns’) also owes much to this rich legacy taking on the darker themes of British balladry with a contemporary twist to give us songs far removed from what Elliot Smith once dismissed as the “boring, drippy stuff” of traditional Folk music.
The band consists of sisters Rachel (cello & vocals) and Becky(vocals) with Belinda O’Hooley on piano and Niopha Keegan on fiddle.
Their sound is unmistakably English , relishing the Northumbrian accent and diction, but their rich sound transcends narrow musical and geographical boundaries as evidenced by a brief extract of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s ‘A Minor Place’ and more lavishly in a superb rendering of Robert Wyatt’s classic ‘Sea Song’ .
Other tracks touch upon familiar ‘folk’ themes but here the bonny lads and lasses are not merely figures from some long gone age. Two tracks really caught my ear. The first (‘Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk’) begins with the lines: “Dear friends I have a sad story – a very sad story to tell – I married a man for his money – And he’s worse than the devil himself” It tells of a battered but not beaten wife seeking solace through booze with a piano and string arrangement that begins delicately but becomes more turbulent to capture the sense of despair and rage of this woman’s plight.
This is followed by the plaintive ‘I Wish’ with its achingly melancholy lines of an expectant mother aware her youthful beauty has faded and wishing for the birth of a child so she can crawl away to the peace of the grave.
For all the pathos, however, these songs of the female condition are full of resilience, humour and courage rather than despair.
The album as a whole is played and performed with real delicacy and passion.
If you think you’re too cool for ‘Folk’ – give this a play and think again.
