Honeyfeet – Orange Whip
Wah Wah 45s – 30 March 2018
Manchester, you will know, doesn’t officially have a Queen but the recent home launch gig for Honeyfeet’s new album Orange Whip felt like a coronation for the band’s irrepressible, inimitable front-woman: flute player and singer extraordinaire Ríoghnach Connolly (Afro Celt Sound System, The Breath, Band of Burns). Completing Honeyfeet’s line-up for the album are Rik Warren (vocals/harmonica), Gus Fairbairn (tenor sax), Biff Roxby (trombone/vocals), Ellis Davies (guitar), Lorien Edwards (bass guitar), John Ellis (keyboards) and David Schlechtriemen (drums). They have been together for 8 years playing their unique blend of musical styles and 40 minutes of your time with Orange Whip will have you fully appreciating why Benjamin Zephaniah said: “I’m in love with Honeyfeet”.
Things really take-off right from the opener Sinner, which was the first single from the album, immediately offering up the essence of Honeyfeet’s absorbing sound. It’s big and brassy, has tons more genuine swagger than just about any allegedly ‘top’ rock and roll band and, to crown it all, Ríoghnach’s marvellously versatile and poignant vocals.
Quickball – ‘I’m gonna chop you into cubes, put you in my freezer. Defrost you and put you in the stew’ – is a cheerful and punchy number written by Ríoghnach about that odd form of enchantment, cannibalism. The song, and in many ways Honeyfeet’s whole ethos, bear a striking resemblance to the work of Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, another musically consummate, versatile and comedic, if criminally largely forgotten, Manchester band from the 1970s. Just like the Albertos, one of Honeyfeet’s many strengths is not taking themselves at all seriously.
The scare-mongering of the press is the target for the jaunty, oom-pah driven Whatever You Do, the second single from the album. It’s onto firmly New Orleans brass band territory on Colonel Hathi’s Trunk Juice and whilst there is an obvious marching connection with Colonel Hathi’s March from the film of The Jungle Book, the ominous lyrics are far removed from the innocence of the dawn patrol.
By the time the album gets to the band’s take on Robert Johnson’s Love in Vain and the following track Hunt and Gather, we need the change to catch our breath after the mostly pacy, edgy preceding songs. Love in Vain is slower, more contemplative than Johnson’s original, with a very effective drawling vocal from Rik Warren and gospel-like hummed background. Hunt and Gather is the most folky, psych-ish, sounding song on Orange Whip. Meandering and moody, it features Hannah Miller (Moulettes) guesting on cello, lovely, restrained singing from Ríoghnach and a floating brass and flute refrain.
Rest over, the album’s finale Meet Me On The Corner (definitely not the Lindisfarne song) is appropriately raucous, with a pulsating rhythm and decidedly rock-like guitar. Ríoghnach’s powerful vocal more than matches the band’s forceful performance, singing a superficially innocent sounding song but the overriding sense is of urgency and maybe even lurking menace. This was also the feverish finale at the launch gig, with the sell-out crowd dancing wildly and then trying very hard for an encore, which the curfew wouldn’t allow, albeit our Queen stayed on stage regardless, sharing her every thought for a good while.
It may seem strange to write about a song that isn’t even on the album, but Honeyfeet did an amazing, storming version of Iron & Wine’s Freedom Hangs Like Heaven at the launch gig, introduced, in the nights overt political moment, by Ríoghnach with reference to the campaign to change the ‘archaic’ absence of abortion rights in the North of Ireland. You can watch a video of them playing the song in the playlist below and my lobbying for this to be on their next album starts here.
Honeyfeet are the epitome of eclectic, a genre-defying but utterly irresistible confluence of their disparate influences. There is blues, jazz, folk and soul in there somewhere, and allegedly hip hop but that passed these ears by – the band themselves seem happy with ‘Folk-Hop and Barrelhouse-pop’, so who are we to argue. Comparison is probably ineffectual but, having already drawn parallels with the Albertos, another that springs to mind is with the great New Orleans band Galactic.
With Orange Whip you really don’t know what’s coming next but every surprise is a real delight, and musically the album is tight, with no wasted notes. As a local – Orange Whip was recorded in a studio half a mile from my front-door (I didn’t know it was there until I read the sleeve notes!) and Ríoghnach until not long ago taught a flute class my daughter goes to – I make no pretence to objectivity. So don’t take my word for it, go and listen to this album for a real treat, which dispenses fun all the way and is just like having a homemade jukebox of many of your favourite kinds of music all in one convenient handy sized album.
Orange Whip is out now on Wah Wah45s – http://www.wahwah45s.com/
Also available via Bandcamp
https://www.facebook.com/honeyfeet/
All the photos featured in this review were provided by Jack Kirwin who took them on the album launch night,(http://www.jackkirwinphotography.com/)