Jacken Elswyth & Alula Down – Betwixt & Between 5
Betwixt & Between Tapes – 6 August 2019
The latest (fifth) release in this series of half-hour cassette tapes (also available digitally) curated by and featuring innovative banjoist Jacken Elswyth follows the customary pattern in that its content is almost equally divided between Jacken and a guest act – in this case, the Herefordshire duo Alula Down (Kate Gathercole and Mark Waters).
Jacken’s own set consists of three tracks recorded live at Café Oto last December, on two of which she reshapes tunes which had appeared on last year’s Betwixt & Between 3 tape. Sweet Lemeny is the subject of an eight-minute improvisation involving, amongst other unusual playing techniques, a drone played with a bow. This track can, at times, be hard to assimilate but it’s worth returning to after playing the remainder of this tape – especially the limpid yet chilling Alula Down rendition of that song which occurs on the second side of the tape. Back with Jacken, the brief Improvisation 22.4 is succeeded by a tune-set incorporating the spirited Appalachian dance tune Last Chance.
For their own set, Alula Down have chosen to link four songs – Sprig Of Thyme, Sweet Lemeny, Three Ravens and (If I Were A) Blackbird – in coolly considered performances sung by Kate and accompanied sparingly by guitar within a gentle tapestry of eerie subliminal extra effects and drones and a modicum of sampled birdsong here and there. Kate’s delicate rendition of Sprig Of Thyme is touchingly done, while Sweet Lemeny, much in spite of its textural vocal loops, sports an imaginative, chiming purity that’s absent from Jacken’s sprawling solo edifice. Three Ravens is suitably gloomy, with the chilling tone of the glass harmonica conveying its bleakness, while Blackbird is almost hesitant by comparison.
Somehow, after a couple of plays, the two disparate sides to the tape actually start to feel well complementary. This tape is already proving to be the most irresistible instalment in the series so far, in fact.
Like its predecessors, Betwixt & Between 5 is a limited-edition release (a very few copies of a CDR have been produced, in addition to the short run of tapes), again with original hand-carved linocut prints also available. This time, the mascot is a satyr; adapted from the satyr featured on the Hereford Mappa Mundi.
Again like all four of its predecessors, Betwixt & Between 5 can be ordered from Bandcamp.
https://www.facebook.com/BetwixtandBetweenTapes