We recently reviewed Rhododendron, the latest album from Topette!! and in his review, David Kidman concluded that “the pleasure its five members derive from playing together spreads like proverbial wildfire to its listeners with the result that Rhododendron is one of those rare instrumental – and dance-oriented – albums which gives virtually equal proportions of cerebral and visceral pleasure.” Just in case you were unsure of where he was coming from he added that the album is: “Seriously recommended.”
Formed in 2014 by bass player Barn Stradling (of Blowzabella), to quote David’s sprightly introduction, the band also features the intensely versatile squeezer Andy Cutting and bright, sparky Mawkin fiddler James Delarre, and a “French contingent” of Julien Cartonnet and Tania Buisse.
Barn recently offered us the opportunity to premiere their new video for Oblique Jig / Miss Heidi from Rhododendron (available from topette.bandcamp.com), we naturally jumped at the chance. There’s more about the set below.
This set of jigs came together very quickly in the recording studio. Julien Cartonnet had learned Oblique Jig from the wonderful Irish concertina player, Niall Vallely. It’s such a simple tune but has an incredible groove to it, which was a great pleasure for Tania Buisse and Barn Stradling to apply their bass and bodhrán section to. Andy Cutting was quick to find a connection with a tune he wrote many years ago, Miss Heidi Hendy, about which he has this to say; “I have two friends, Paul Hendy and Heidi Quaif, who got married. So Heidi became Heidi Hendy. I wrote this tune for them.”
This pair of tunes work well for a lovely French dance, La Chapelloise. One of the repertoire of dances to be seen and enjoyed at “Bal-Folk” events across Europe, which now has a growing and enthusiastic following in the UK.
The video was made by the band’s old friend Simon Houlihan, who has been responsible for several Topette!! videos, including the band’s first outing, Venture, which was a big hit with FRUK fans in 2015. The new video was filmed at a joyous Bal / Euro-Dance at this year’s Sidmouth Folk Festival, where the floor of the Bulverton marquee was packed with happily grooving dancers!
Topette!! have a few more outings lined up this year, including two dates in France, (Épinal and Cassel) on the 2nd and 3rd of November, which are causing a few Brexit-related worries about the English contingent of the band having to travel with instruments, the day after the UK government intends to leave the EU, “with or without a deal”. So, yeah, safe to say Topette!! are not the biggest fans of the whole Brexit fiasco. However, they fully intend to continue with their musical-cultural-cross-pollination project! Look out for festival dates across Europe and another UK tour in 2020…
Buy the album here – topette.bandcamp.com