Goblin Band announce their debut EP ‘Come Slack Your Horse!’ and share their new single ‘Widecombe Fair’…Sounding like a 17th-century punk band, they deliver music in its raw, merry-making form – as intended.
Relative newcomers to the UK’s trad folk circuit, London Queer Folk Sextet Goblin Band, have announced their debut EP ‘Come Slack Your Horse!’ – due 1st May via Broadside Hacks Recordings (The New Eves, Milkweed). To mark the announcement, they have shared their new single, ‘Widecombe Fair’. This folk ballad goes under other names, including Tom Pearce. In my copy of Folksongs of Britain and Ireland (edited by Peter Kennedy), the ballads are neatly collected under shared subjects, and this gets placed in ‘Songs of Diversion’. These are songs that are enjoyed socially. Kennedy states that these songs have always been a favourite of social occasions in the tavern when a tongue-twister or a long repeated chorus would be used to test someone’s ability to keep a clear head. Interestingly, the opening song listed in the section is A-Going To The Fair, which also relates to the same fair, although here it’s spelt Widdiecombe.
Widecombe Fair has a long list of names to remember, living up to the challenge of memory. The Goblin Band take it on in great spirit and, with great communal authenticity, deliver a rousing folk song without all trappings. Sounding like a 17th-century punk band, they deliver music in its raw, merry-making form – as intended.
They say:
“Widecombe Fair is an exceptional example of a kind of folk musical local export. Widecombe in the Moor is a village on Dartmoor, a deeply haunted place and close to [vocalist] Gwena’s family home, where since at least the 19th century a popular livestock fair has been held. The song describes the story of far too many people borrowing and riding a single horse to attend the fair, resulting in the poor creature’s death, and the unfortunate gang haunting the moor forever. It is said that all the characters named in the song were real people living around Widecombe in the 19th century, and Uncle Tom Cobbley’s chair can be seen preserved in one of the village gift shops. The song is well known to older generations, and surely holds the prize for the most merchandise associated with a English folk song.”
Widecombe Fair follows last month’s long-awaited debut release, ‘The Prickle Holly Bush’.
About Goblin Band and their debut EP ‘Come Slack Your Horse!’
Goblin Band are a collection of queer musicians based around Hobgoblin Music, a folk-instrument shop with a branch located in central London. Inspired as much by medieval and early music as they are by the folk traditions of Britain and abroad, the six-piece set their stall on re-energising timeless, much-journeyed songs for an ever-growing new community of young folk enthusiasts. The band and its members are also integral members of London’s blossoming folk movement, centred around the Broadside Hacks Folk Club and their regularly sold-out events at Hackney’s Moth Club.
The band’s debut EP, ‘Come Slack Your Horse!’—featuring songs dating back as early as the mid-17th century—sees them doing just that. While some tracks here—such as instrumental opener ‘Black Nag’ or ‘Widecombe Fair’—express a boundless, escapist joy and the band’s deeply infectious enthusiasm for traditional music, many tracks across the collection, despite their age, bear startling parallels with the travails of contemporary society.
Goblin Band are:
Rowan Gatherer – He/Him – Vocals
Sonny Brazil – They/Them – Vocals, Accordion
Gwenna Harman – She/Her – Vocals
Alice Beadle – She/Her – Violin
Paul Gardner – He/Him – Drums
Piran Casely – They/Them – Mandola
Pre-Order Come Slack Your Horse! via Bandcamp on CD, Cassette (and digital): https://goblinbanduk.bandcamp.com/album/come-slack-your-horse
Catch them live:
May 1 – EP Launch / Broadside Hacks Folk, Moth Club
May 3 – @weird_walk / Landsdown Hall, Stroud
More details on Broadside Hacks Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/broadsidehacks
Follow Goblin Band on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goblin.band/