Jacken Elswyth / Sproatly Smith: Betwixt & Between 3
Betwixt & Between Tapes – Out Now
The idea of an artist putting music out on cassette seems positively archaic now. It’s almost as quirky as Jack White recording artists to 78rpm shellac. But whereas White attempts to stimulate the conversation about how we consume our music in the 21st Century, as well as provide us with a kind of fully functioning museum piece, Jacken Elswyth’s ongoing cassette tape project ‘Betwixt And Between’ offers musical content presented artfully, with great sound and affordability for both the manufacturer and consumer. It is, in essence, a cottage industry, a noble endeavour that is folksy to the core. It’s growing too, for on this third instalment of the series there are also CDr pressings available (in very limited quantities). The artwork design is for sale too as a limited-edition hand carved linocut and hand pulled print. Low production numbers coupled with the superior attention to detail of the artistic presentation should ensure that these are collectors’ item of the future, there are only 20 CDs being produced and 50 cassettes. The music is also available digitally.
If that volume seems a little too small in quantity to make much of a ripple, then I’d ask you to consider that Lightnin’ Hopkins first album ‘The Rooster Crowed In England’ was only pressed in a quantity of 100. Today it’s a red-hot collector’s item, naturally enough because he became highly regarded as one of the decades premier purveyors of the Blues. There’s nothing to say that Jacken Elswyth could not be of a similar pedigree, albeit in the world of experimental folk music. Elswyth plays the banjo in a manner that pushes the boundaries of the instrument itself and the style of playing it is commonly associated with. She also uses the ‘Betwixt & Between’ banner as a creative outlet and an opportunity to put out an audio document in juxtaposition with another similar, yet also wildly contrasting, recording artist. On this edition, the guest spot goes to psychedelic folk astronauts from Weirdshire, close to the Welsh borders, Sproatly Smith.
Elswyth has four pieces of banjo music on this release. They all engage with the world of improvisation without falling over the cliff edge into indulgence. There’s a definite ear for melodic progression in Jacken’s advanced handling of the instrument. This is quite evident in the tunes ‘Glory In The Meeting House’ and ‘Last Chance / Sandy River Belle’. Both are developed out of Appalachian fiddle tunes. On ‘Improvisation on Sweet Lemeny’ the English folk song is stretched and pulled like an elastic band, almost to the point where it might snap and sting your hands but the shruti box drones provide a bedrock holding it all together. I’m reminded a little of John Fahey whose sound could similarly draw lines between Eastern and Western music.
The Sproatly Smith contribution is a sound collage epic. Titled ‘Vichai’ it is fifteen head spinning minutes of bells and bird calls, sampled voices and gospel songs that unfold gently then dramatically over several phases. There’s so much here that even after repeated listens I can’t pick apart everything that’s going on although there are indeed some Hawaiian slide guitars and wooden flutes waiting to be spotted in the mix. Described as a meditation on life, death and divinity; this is a piece of music that both demands and then holds your attention.
I wholeheartedly approve of commercial endeavours like this and want to give a loud heads up. Not because I like the underground nature of it, nor because it is so low key that it ultimately could end up being a proper curio rarity sitting in my folk collection. No, the reason enterprises like this are special is because they are the offspring of the greatest music labels in the history of recorded sound. Labels like Blue Note, Topic, Atlantic and Motown were run, produced and driven by people who both played music and breathed music; creative people who made records because they were wrapping their lives into the process of getting their art out into the marketplace. Not to honour some middle management marketing strategy, but simply because they cared about their work. Jacken Elswyth’s ‘Betwixt & Between’ project is maintaining that tradition. The end product is a wholly credible, hypnotic and fascinating piece of work. Time to dig out your old tape player perhaps?
Order via Bandcamp: https://betwixtbetweentapes.bandcamp.com/album/betwixt-between-3