Peter Knight’s Gigspanner – From Poets to Wives
Talking Elephant – 16 April 2021
What started as a sideline for the Steeleye fiddler has become not only a full-time occupation but one of the most inventive and thrilling experimental folk bands around. 2019 marked the tenth anniversary of the release of Lipreading the Poet, the debut album by Peter Knight’s Gigspanner and this “best-of”, curated by Peter, is designed to raise Gigspanner’s profile and promote a wider appreciation of the group. While they’ve been well-covered on Folk Radio, if you haven’t heard them already, boy are you in for a treat…
While Greatest Hits Album are often declared as “over” with the argument that everyone can access your back catalogue online now, that’s not the case with Gigspanner. Only two of their early albums are available on Spotify and fans usually purchase albums directly, either from their website or at live gigs.
You clearly can’t keep a good (rocket) cottage industry down because, since 2009, fiddler and singer Peter Knight, guitarist Roger Flack and percussionist Vincent Salzfaas (replaced by Sacha Trochet in 2016) have developed a growing admiration as a live and studio band.
That’s why roots record label Talking Elephant proposed this compilation. It features cherry-picked tracks from the band’s first three studio albums, Lipreading the Poet (2009), Layers of Ages (2015) and The Wife of Urban Law (2017) and their stunning live album Doors at Eight (2011).
Choosing just nine tracks is no mean feat, but this is an expertly curated and sequenced selection. Much of the tracks are familiar traditional songs and tunes such as She Moved Through The Fair, Bold Riley and Death and the Lady. But unless you’ve already been gripped by Gigspanner, the arrangements will not be. The music is more free-flowing, intricate and unorthodox than Steeleye Span and the standard British folk-rock sound.
Peter’s fiddle swoops and soars revelling in a lifetime of influences from British and Irish folk to classical and more esoteric influences from many diverse cultures. The opening track, She Moved Through The Fair, sets the stall. It’s both the tune we all know, but twisting and turning into unexpected avenues, culminating in a soaring dance tune propelled by Vincent Salzfaas’s drumming.
Clocking in at nearly nine minutes, it’s gripping from start to finish and sets out a case for Gigspanner to be the British equivalent of The Gloaming (maybe the other way around as Peter Knight’s trio have two years on the Anglo/Irish quintet).
Another instrumental, The Blackbird– an unexpected fusion of funk and folk– is surely due a dance remix. In its current form, it is already pretty irresistible. As is the Arabic-influenced The Butterfly which is so beautifully performed it’s a shock when you hear the applause at the end and realise it’s a live recording.
But it’s not all instrumentals, Peter adds his distinctive lead vocals to four of the tracks, including a masterful reading of Death and the Lady, which is as creepy and ominous as you would expect, particularly the distorted fiddle/guitar coda at the end. Hard Times of Old England escapes from the confines of the rather more boyant Steeleye arrangement and feels extraordinary precinct right now. Despite the gloom of the lyrics and Peter Knight’s suitably downcast delivery, it still manages to be beautifully uplifting.
If you have all the Gigspanner albums, this is still an inviting listen because the tracks are so well chosen. But you will soon be drawn back to the full albums. If you have never purchased a Gigspanner release, or have heard them at a festival and want to find out more, this is the perfect place to start.
Catch them live whenever you have the opportunity. Peter Knight’s Gigspanner is a national treasure and we need their uplifting and alluring music right now. This is the best of the very best.