Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll – Cold Light
English Fiddle Music – Out Now
Nearly two decades ago, I started to learn the piano. I’m still learning. The latest piece my teacher has given me is Handel’s Sarabande from his Keyboard Suite in D minor (HWV437 if you’re counting). I started this on the day that I received Cold Light to review. When I got to track 5 La Folia, I did a bit of a double-take. La Folia, the musical term, is a well-known musical form, that has been around for over three centuries and has been used by over 150 composers including Lully, Salieri, Purcell and, in my piece, by Handel. Curious and spurred on by the coincidence, I forwent the piano practice and took to listening to the whole album.
Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll recently released this, their sixth album, working more on things in the studio than just content to capture their ‘live’ sound. Having said that, the opening track The Knitting Reel must be as much fun in the flesh as it is here. As the son and husband of great knitters, it is easy to hear the rhythm of the needles, the simple clicks and clacks that can call out for a tune to be built around them. From the start, we can also hear how the duo crosses musical boundaries easily. Influences, extracts, are used to full effect and are not in any way contrived. Knitting Reel sets you up for the rest of the album.
Cold Light casts it steel grey rays onto many things, and the songs cover a range of very contemporary issues. Who’s Crying Now reflects on the struggle to get free from addiction, the English bagpipes of David Faulkner adding poignancy, if it were needed, to recount and lament. Halo is possibly the most intense song on the album, a powerful ballad for our beleaguered times. The shadows of abuse hang over all us in one way or another
Secrets kept,
secrets told,
secrets whispered,
Becki Driscoll’s voice and words reflect how easy it is to ignore, and with a view to the revelations that have come to light recently concerning historical cases of abuse, how easy it is to
Lock the door,
And hide the key
And shiver in the dark.
Close your eyes
Your mind,
Your soul,
Your heart
Riddles Wisely Expounded (recently featured on the Folk Show here) is one of those songs that has such a long history that each version is clearly designed to get the listener to say “I know that” and then realise that you don’t – except that you do… Well, in other guises it appears as Ninety-Nine and Ninety or The Three Sisters amongst others. The song’s history goes back several centuries, and has travelled to Appalachia and has then returned to the UK via Alan Lomax. This a great version. It is freshly thought out, builds, not too slowly, but it is the use of the breath to beat out the time that draws you in. By the second verse (same as the first) the sound picture is full, then out it all drops to leave the percussion and then Becki’s voice. Eventually, we get to the answers and the English pipes feed in gently to be overtaken by the trumpet of Josh Westrip adding a brief but crisp Spaghetti Western moment that is long enough to raise a smile but gone again before we reach for the poncho and the half-chewed cigar.
The final song to mention is Winter. A typical folk song some may say, Becki’s tale is of the singer following her love to his watery grave. The sea has to be respected but even more so perhaps in the dark months:
However Winter has come
and the warmth off the sun
has left me long ago
Oh the trees they stand bare
and the frost bites the air
and the small birds whither in the snow
Oh my love he has gone never more to return
He has vanished beneath the ocean wave
Staying with winter, the title track, Cold Light is a delightful tune written on a still January morning. I have no trouble seeing the frost glistening on the leaves, the light streaming in yellow shafts through the surrounding greenery, glinting on the tiny balls of moisture collected on the tips of the blades of grass, reflecting the universe back to the viewer. The light may be cold, but the promise is for warmth.
All this and a whole lot of great tunes. William Andrew’s Hornpipes dispel these winter blues; Tie the Petticoat Tighter/The Triumph are both familiar and both versions influenced much by the duo’s home area of the south-west; and Systerpolska, a lovely Swedish tune, the notes suggesting that there are more echoes of the cold winds of winter. The final tune and closing track is the traditional Cornish tune Boscastle Breakdown. A great ending to the album and, as is the rule for all great entertainment, leave ’em on a high, and leave ’em wanting more.
And so there it is. This is an excellent album in so many ways. There are clearly many musical influences that stretch way beyond folk, jazz, classical, contemporary classical – which all serve to make the music fresh, exciting and individual. Nick and Becki’s compositions fit well with the traditional pieces and whole works together in such a way that is rare to find. If you don’t listen to this, you will be missing out on a great album.
Now time for piano practice.
Order the album here: https://www.englishfiddle.com/shop/
For details of their upcoming gigs visit: https://www.englishfiddle.com/gig_dates/