Banter – Dare
Mrs Caseys Records – Out Now
It was in the Summer of 2017 that I first came across Banter at Wickham Festival. In my opening festival review, I described the band as “Simon Care trying on a new set of musical clothes” along with Tim Walker on percussion and brass and Nina Zella on keyboards and vocals. In fairness, though, Simon’s costume was only half new, Banter’s 2017 music still had English dance tunes at its core. But the other half was packed with fascinating possibilities: Nina’s song writing and vocals, her keyboard playing, happily throwing unexpected jazz chords into the arrangement, trumpet and trombone from Tim that made you sit up and take notice even when he wasn’t playing the trumpet with one hand and drums with the other. All of these elements were seemingly happy to bed down, cosily, with Simon’s melodeons.
Over the next two years, I saw Banter many times in their ceilidh persona. All the novel elements were still there, while necessarily a little subdued when supplying the music for traditional dances. But at Costa del Folk in Ibiza this year, as well as being the resident ceilidh band, they had a main stage slot, an opportunity to appreciate how much the band had grown as they gave a performance unfettered by dance structures and tempos. I’m delighted to say that Dare, the band’s second album, is an equally polished showcase for the talents of three accomplished, adventurous musicians.
Dare opens with a rhythm that owes as much to Simon’s melodeon as it does to Tim’s percussion and when the keyboard joins, it adds a swing with a riff that develops on through the song. Nina’s lyrics set out what she wants, giving the song its title, Just Love, but also gives us a fairly long list of what she doesn’t want. No falsehoods, no lies, you get the picture. There are three more of Nina’s songs including Leader, a more political song that makes it quite clear she doesn’t have much time for the unnamed leader, who could be anyone given the current state of the world. She also takes lead vocal on a trad. song, Easy on Me, and, to close out the album, a spirited take on The Police’s Roxanne. All three of the band help out with chorus vocals, while Tim leads on two other traditional songs, Candlelight Fisherman and Strike The Bell.
The remaining four tracks are traditional, instrumental tunes presented in distinctly non-traditional arrangements. There is a pattern to the structure of these arrangements, they start with the melodeon running through the melody accompanied by a percussive rhythm and keyboard chords. But that’s about the only thing they have in common. As each track develops, the band explores the additions their less conventional instrumentation can bring to the track. On Harpers Frolic/Bonny Kate the keyboard, initially content with bass chords, gradually becomes more melodic but never completely elbows out the melodeon, a neat illustration of band dynamics perhaps. On Johnny Goes To France voices get into the act, no words, just doo-de-dahs, eventually joined by Tim’s trumpet. Banter have already been dubbed “the world’s smallest big band” and with arrangements like this you’d better believe it.
It’s been a delight to see and hear how Banter have developed over these last two years, amply justifying the expectations many people had of them. These could have been a millstone round the neck of lesser musicians but Simon, Tim and Nina have more than met the challenge, producing an album that’s entertaining and intriguing in equal measure. At Costa del Folk this year, Simon, never at a loss for a pithy quote, summed it up nicely, “we started out as a ceilidh band with a few songs, now we’re a concert band who can play ceilidhs”. The mix of songs and tunes on Dare is a perfect illustration.
For upcoming dates visit: http://www.banter.band