Various – Sounds Like Knockengorroch 2020: Music From The Hills in Lockdown
Independent – Out Now
Unless you are a regular reader of these pages or live within the ‘Debatable Lands’ that straddles the far north of England and the lowlands of Scotland, the chances are you will be unfamiliar with the name Knockengorroch. If that is the case, then have I a treat for you, as Knockengorroch deserves and demands your attention on many counts. Those in the know are aware of this green valley in the midst of Dumfries and Galloway, it is home to a longstanding music festival, with origins dating back to 1998, and a melting pot of musical heritages, loosely occupying the hinterland where folk and electronica meet and merge, with no small addition of world and ethnic enthusiasms. Think a pocket Glastonbury in the mid-80s, with a dash of WOMAD and no small dollop also of rave culture (or should that be reive culture?)
Robbed of taking place this year by the virus, and whilst carried forward to next year, a ‘Virtual’ festival did actually take place in lockdown, via Zoom, so as to allow a greater degree of interaction. The contributors to this project comprise the names, or many of them, that took part. Varying between festival favourites, well-established acts like Afro-Celt Sound System and Shooglenifty, to lesser-heard names, whether making their way up the ladder or local favourites, and a real flavour of the festival is effortlessly instilled. And on this reckoning, I would be surprised if many remained unknown or unloved. The festival apart, the project acts also as a timely state of play around the diversity of folk and roots in the UK today, standing up in its own right whether you have ever been to the festival, or ever might. Split into two halves, one per disc, first Dodd Hill and then the Heugh (ravine), both landmarks within the valley, each runs the gamut of performance between the outdoor stages, the dance tents and more intimate sessions at this rightly styled World Ceilidh.
The Afro Celt Sound System kick things off*, with the specially written ‘Lockdown Garroch Reel’ (featured in the latest Folk Show here) neatly encompassing the myriad influences described above, their sound increasingly organic these days, and none the worse for that. Keeping you on your feet, Glasgow’s Samson Sounds deliver some invigorating hybrid township dub, enrolling singer Dandelion to toast the glorious chorus, rhyming ‘karma’, ‘armour’, ‘drama’ with ‘one day I want to be a farmer’. Glorious. No rest as the setting races over from the World Music Stage to the Dance Tent, with Mungo’s Hi Fi & Marina P skanking righteously. If this opening salvo hasn’t got you smiling, I fear for you.
Slowing slightly, Cera Impala, who describes her smokey vocals and banjo as hillbilly noir, maintains a feel-good vibe. More please. The sounds of young and maybe less young Scotland continue to delight, with the cello and guitar duo, Anima, giving a paean, ‘Fireside Companion’, to the Celtic longhouse that houses the most intimate venue of the festival, sounding altogether like a psychedelic Nick Drake. With the mood drawn down, it is then for a couple of acoustic acts to continue this tour. Kaela Rowan, also of Shooglenifty, carries a delicate rendition of the traditional ‘As I Roved Out’, seriously threatening the magisterial Planxty version of all those years ago, especially as the uillean pipes of Jarlath Henderson sweep in. Morag Brown and Lewis Powell-Reid, on fiddle and guitar, could soothe any mind with their instrumental balm and do, allowing Holiday Club to then have your feet back a’tapping to their flute, fiddle and guitars.
We next get one of the bigger hitters, the venerable Poozies, still with original member Mary Macmaster and the nearly as longstanding Eilidh Shaw, with their two equally talented newer cohorts. But rather than rest on any last century laurels, of which they couped plenty, this shows how close they have kept their fingers on the pulse, a lilting trad ballad with a reggae rhythm, led by banjo and electro-harp. Finally, rounding out still only disc one is DJ Dolphin Boy with a track that has all the joy of early Dreadzone, if through a Portobello filter.
Maybe time to now figuratively crawl back to an imaginary tent, but honestly, no reason not just to crack on. I guess the second disc has a more Sunday feel, opening as it does with Ewan McLennan, ‘Roll On’ (premiered on Folk Radio here), a competent and efficient song, his pleasing velvety voice over rolling guitar and harmonica. The increasing prominence of cello in folk music is showcased now by Ceitidh Mac, a Gael from Wales, with her trio of cello, vibes and percussion/beats, giving her Beth Orton-y voice a solid backdrop. It’s going to be another good day.
Twelfth Day a regularly featured female duet of harp and fiddle on Folk Radio, sound at times like a pair of Kate Bushes fronting Pentangle at their jazziest. Which has me ready for mellow, that coming in the summery tones of Theo Bard, a songwriter and producer with a deft hand for electronic sampling to augment his haunting vocal.
Showing you can’t tie a good girl down, Eilidh Shaw reappears a second time, this time in her duo incarnation with Ross Martin, lynchpin and piper of Daimh, and as dab a hand on guitar as she is on fiddle. Here they offer ‘Stoned Again‘, a languid western swing-waltz, with some echoes of their cover of Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark.’ This leads her fellow Poozie, Mary Macmaster to appear in her own duo, McMaster/Hay, the Hay being Donald, percussionist to everyone from Eliza Carthy to John McCusker and even Sting. His sympathetic playing embeds the electro harp and gaelic vocal of McMaster, meaning yet another scamper of this listener toward source material.
I freely confess to not always finding Moishe’s Bagel to my taste, thus agreeably surprised to see how well they segue into this setting, their sometimes unwieldy meld of klezmer styles with a Scottish tradition suddenly now working for me, in an accordion led waltz that breaks into a Buena Vista piano middle section, speeding up into what sounds like wedding dance. Before I can wonder overmuch by this damascene moment, some rough and ready acoustic bottleneck blues arrives from John Fairhurst. The Wigan Jimi Hendrix says his publicity, but I am hearing more a Rory Gallagher and in a good way.
Perhaps you are beginning to wonder where Shooglenifty have got to. Until, as ever, they start, Eilidh Shaw back for a further turn, having so ably taken over the mantle of the late lamented Angus R. Grant. ‘Black Dog’ is from their recently released Acid Croft Vol 9 (reviewed here), and completely calms any nerves about replacing the irreplaceable, as well as having a strong flavour of their recent excursions with Indian group Dhun Dhora, and contains Kaela Rowan’s second appearance on this disc for some Gaelic vocal. While that might have seemed as good a place as any to end, it isn’t, an encore, if you will, coming from one of the seemingly endless supplies of new Scottish bagpipe fusion bands. Awry describe their music as psychogaelic and a grand phrase it is too, the sound a potent middle ground between Elephant Sessions and NiteWorks.
I guess I should apologise for the lengthiness of this review, but it simply wouldn’t have been fair to leave any single one of the participants out. As I said, if you don’t know the festival, I bet now you are wanting to. Knockengorroch runs from 27 – 30/5/21, virus willing, and the website is here: knockengorroch.org.uk. And even if you don’t, most of these tunes will stick in your head and involve many a trip to Bandcamp and the equivalents, as well as the purchase helping defray the 2020 losses to the organisers. Win, win, win.
More here: https://www.knockengorroch.org.uk/
* To note, the running order on Bandcamp lists The Deugh disc first rather than second, as found on the physical release, as reviewed here.