There has always been a strand of folk music that seeks to address contemporary social, political or environmental issues. Often this will involve the composition of new songs to engage with specific causes – protest songs, essentially. But recently there has been a trend towards the use of traditional material to highlight present-day concerns, a sense that an appeal to history can help us better understand our current state of affairs. It’s a difficult method to adopt – the songs of the past are subtle, changing things – but one which the Askew Sisters, Hazel and Emily, have mastered. Their new album, Enclosure (reviewed here), is a triumphant collection of mainly traditional songs and tunes chosen to reflect on a range of universal and immediately pertinent themes such as individual liberty, inequality and the human relationship with landscapes.
I am interested to know how the sisters came to create an album that balances the political with the historical, and they were keen to explain. Hazel, who sings and plays melodeon and concertina, is open about the political aspect of the music. ‘I think we’ve got to an age and a place in life where our political views are always there in the background, and they obviously influence what we choose to sing and how we present it. Our starting point for the album was place and power, so I think there was always going to be a political strand to the new material to some extent. It’s great that you’ve picked up on it as I think some people often only describe music as political when it’s overtly protest music, but you can make a political statement in many ways, in what you choose to sing and what you highlight it in. I think if you put music into the world it’s important to think about what message it sends. This doesn’t mean only singing songs that only show things you agree with, but maybe for example not singing songs where things are problematic are just presented as the status quo and not highlighted in any way, or at least making sure you set up a song with an introduction and arrangement that makes it clear what story you’re telling.’
One of Enclosure’s themes – one which perhaps emerges a little more on repeated listens – is the importance of a sense of place, of belonging. At first, the album, like a lot of folk music, feels rooted in a rural past. But as Hazel explains, it is not quite as simple as that: ‘There are a lot of rural themes on the album, but we thought around the term ‘Enclosure’ in quite a few different ways and some of the songs on the album feel very urban to us, like Georgie and Moorfields, both songs very much set in London. Traditional music’s relationship with town and countryside is quite complex; many of the folk song collectors focused on rural areas as it was thought that traditional songs survived there the longest, which is probably true. They did visit cities sometimes, often focusing on workhouses and finding songs there, but I think in general cities were less of a hotbed for folk music as there were so many other kinds of music going on there and the loss of the social settings where folk music thrived.’
She continues: ‘I think though that there is often an element of escapism in folk music, which people gravitate towards. 1851 was the first year that more people in Britain lived in towns than the countryside, which wasn’t that long ago; our connection with nature and rural landscapes is still part of our psyche I suppose, and an integral part of human nature. Our relationship with the natural world is something we’re really starting to re-evaluate now that issues of climate change and biodiversity are slowly beginning to be given the weight that they need, and some of these old songs hark back to a time when that relationship was not so distant.’
So there may have been a rural bias in traditional music, but the sisters (along with other acts like Stick In The Wheel) are well-placed to redress the balance. ‘We’ve talked a lot about being from London and playing folk music over the years,’ says Hazel. ‘There wasn’t as much folk going on in London as there is now, and we always had to travel outside to find other young people to play with when we were growing up. We have sung quite a few London and city songs over the year, partly to explore that connection and that part of our identity. We’ve talked about even doing a London/city album, but we have probably done most of the songs we’d put on that on previous recordings! There are still a lot of songs about town and city life out there though.’
Which brings us to the process of choosing the songs. Both sisters seem to have a knack for unearthing old songs or versions of songs that haven’t been heard in a while. So just how difficult and painstaking is it? I imagine the pair of them sifting through reams of archival material in search of something suitable. As it turns out, that’s not too far from the truth.
‘It is often quite a long process,’ says Emily. ‘When we first started, researching songs was harder in some ways as there was very little online. Looking for different versions of songs often involved trips to the Vaughan Williams Library and looking at microfilm or listening to old records. That’s much easier now thanks to projects like the digitisation of the Vaughan Williams Library’s manuscript collection and the wonderful Village Music Project site, but we have a different complication now that after 14 years of playing together we have covered a lot of material, so we have to dig a lot deeper now to unearth more unusual songs or versions of a song. That is often really rewarding though, and it feels special to find something that may have been overlooked for hundreds of years.’
And, as Hazel confirms, there is a surprising amount of hard work that has to be put in before the duo even began recording: ‘With this album it also took us quite a long time to work out what we wanted to sing now, and what we wanted to sound like as a duo now. We played through and experimented with a lot of material and there were many things that didn’t make the cut. One of the nice things about working with traditional music for so long though is that a song that didn’t catch your eye 10 years ago may read completely differently to you now, which opens up new possibilities.’
The extent to which the pair adapt their chosen material varies from song to song. On the finished album, it seems natural and unforced, but there are always difficult choices to be made. In the song Castle By The Sea, for example, they mention having to resist the temptation to play around too much with the original tune. Are there some songs that they feel they can take more liberties with, and why should certain tunes remain untampered-with? According to Emily, the choice matters less than the result: ‘I think that it’s fine either way, folk tradition is strong and you can’t break it by making the material your own, it’s a living and evolving process. We do often edit songs and tunes and write our own sometimes, most often when we want to give the song a different feel or we feel the original tune doesn’t bring out what we see in the song. We did write a whole new tune and arrangement for Castle By The Sea that was much more atmospheric as we were hoping to bring out the darker side of the story and the imagery, but it wasn’t quite working, so we went back to the original quite jolly tune and it all just made sense. It’s not uncommon to get major tunes for very dark songs, which can feel quite incongruous sometimes, but it quite often just works. Sometimes you’ve just got to trust the original material.’
One of Enclosure’s most intriguing moments is The Wounded Hussar, a song found by Emily in the notebooks of rural poet (and musician) John Clare. It is the perfect example of how a combination of hard research and good fortune can produce a moment of magic. ‘We’ve both been aware of John Clare for years and Hazel studied him at university,’ explains Emily. ‘I recently went to a talk at the National Portrait Gallery about him, which renewed my interest. Our Dad had the book of his tunes, and we played through most of them. He mentioned Gordon Tyrrell was a fan of the Wounded Hussar and we agreed it was a beautiful tune. Clare’s version has a note near the start that is different to many of the other versions of it and it puts it in a slightly different mode and brings out this sadness, which for us feels quite connected to the sadness of his life.’
It is interesting that they mention their dad as an influence – family is clearly an important part of their musical vision. To an outsider it might seem obvious that a pair of sisters who have grown up singing and playing together are musically compatible, but what does that feel like from the inside? Is there some innate understanding that enables people in the same family to work more effectively together, or does it come from years of playing together? ‘I think it’s a mixture of both,’ says Emily. ‘We both work well with other musicians who we’ve been working with for years, so the experience of playing together for so long automatically creates a bond and understanding. I think working with a family member can often mean that you can be brutally honest with each other. It can be fiery, but you know where you stand and decision making can be quicker because of this. When we’re improvising or covering things that go wrong on stage, we can often tell what each other is going to do without talking about it, which again comes from playing together for so many years. It is also easier to blend our voices together, although being sisters, it’s surprising how we do pronounce some words in quite different ways.’
Away from their work as a duo, both sisters are prolific performers and collaborators. Emily is part of, amongst others, The Artisans and Ceilidh Factor while Hazel is one-third of Lady Maisery, where she often practises the form of wordless singing known as diddling. You can also hear some diddling here, on The Wounded Hussar. It is a distinctive but quite rare art form, and I am intrigued to know exactly where it came from and why it exists. Hazel is evidently passionate about the subject, and speaks eloquently on it: ‘Diddling is essentially just singing a tune instead of playing it on an instrument. It’s something that happens in folk cultures all over the world (tralling in Scandinavia, lilting in Ireland, mouth music in Scotland) and it often seems to have been linked to dancing – people would have just sung for dancing when there wasn’t an instrument around. We know they did it in England, there’s a few references to it and some recordings, particularly of traveller singers, but in many ways it sort of died out as a tradition, maybe because it’s just something people did in the absence of an instrument so it wasn’t really thought of as a particular tradition. It’s fun to experiment with it occasionally, there’s a tiny bit on ‘Enclosure’ and a little bit on our previous album ‘In the Air or the Earth’ too. It opens up whole new textures when playing tunes and is nice to be able to express the melody a tune in a totally different way.’
As albums go, Enclosure is the complete package. And that goes for the artwork too. The cover was designed and created by Kathleen Neeley (who also did some work for Lady Maisery). So how did you come to work with her and what is it about her art that complements their music so well?
‘We actually came across Kathleen when Lady Maisery were looking to commission the cover art for Cycle,’ says Hazel. ‘We came across an artwork online in a similar style to what we imagined for our cover and contacted the artist (Thomas Shahan) who was really interested in working with us and suggested collaborating with Kathleen. We love the artwork both of them create and they seem to be able to realise our ideas so well. For Enclosure, we had a strong idea of having small illustrations inspired by the songs, but keeping it really simple with the gold and grey colour scheme and Kathleen got it straight away. We’re really pleased by how it’s turned out and have had a lot of compliments, which is lovely.’
Finally, I mention that the state of folk music in the UK seems to be as healthy now as it has ever been. The sisters are part of a scene that is extensive and thriving, so much so that certain acts sometimes slip under the radar. With that in mind, what other musicians are the pair currently inspired by?
Emily: ‘I took some fiddle inspiration from John Dipper’s playing (who I play with in Alma and my own band. He also recorded and edited the album). The section in the middle of the London’s Loyalty set might have been inadvertently inspired by him practising some classical fiddle exercises! We were also listening to Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh a bit around that time, he makes such incredible sound worlds from traditional fiddle music. I think a bit of my past playing Bach on the cello came into the end of I Wandered by the Brookside.’
‘I think around the time we started making the album I’d been listening to quite a lot of Sam Amidon,’ Hazel adds. ‘His music manages to be so contemporary yet very traditional which I suppose is something we were thinking about when making this album. I also just take a lot of influence from the people I play with, Hannah James and Rowan Rheingans from Lady Maisery for example. We’ve also generally been influenced by other musicians playing traditional English music, particularly when we first started performing as a duo.’
This mixture of the homegrown and the exotic, the old and the new, is revealing. It helps to explain just why the Askew Sisters are one of the most refreshing and exciting acts in folk music, and why Enclosure is set to be one of the albums of the year.
Watch them performing ‘I Wandered by the Broookside’, filmed at Wilton’s Music Hall by Eric Revill-Dews of Bigger Boat film.
Enclosure is out now via Oakemere Music. Order via The Askew Sisters website: http://www.askewsisters.co.uk/pages/site/albums.htm
Upcoming Tour Dates
26-27 May – Chester Folk Festival, Chester
07 Jun – Wimborne Minster Folk Festival, Wimborne, Dorset
19-21 Jul – Creative English Music and Song Weekend Course, Halsway Manor, Somerset
20 Jul – Halsway Manor, nr Taunton, Somerset
02 Aug – Sidmouth Folk Festival, Sidmouth, Devon
30 Aug – Lyme Folk Weekend, Lyme Regis, Dorset
Photo Credit: Elly Lucas