The ever-innovative and experimental sextet Bonfire Radicals returns with their five-track EP Flywheel, swirling musical colours and shapes recorded live in the round and drawing on British, Greek and Balkan influences alike, all propelled by their urgent rhythm section of bassist Pete Churchill and drummer Hias Lintzos. It kicks off with the musical mayhem of Zalizome/Den Born Manoula M, a fusion of two Greek traditionals with a metronome on speed percussive rhythm, Katie Stevens’s clarinet, Sarah Farmer’s frenzied dancing Celtic fiddle, indecipherable vocals and Emma Reading’s blistering guitar crescendo.
Penned by Stevens, The Lost Pick, a lament for an AWOL plectrum, takes its influence from Bulgaria folk with kaval and recorder dancing around a 13.8 groove. In distinct contrast, Michelle Holloway sings a reedy lead, with Stevens, Farmer, and Churchill on harmonies, in a brooding arrangement of the traditional Love Is Teasing that edges more towards trance-inducing Eastern doom metal than folk.
Farmer’s responsible for the burbling, wobbly, scat electronica Sarah’s Muffins with its complex drums and ba-ba-ing vocal interjections sounding like The Swingle Singers having a meltdown. It ends with a brief reimaging of Churchill’s Satsuma Moon off their last album, here rejuiced with accordion as Squeeze That Satsuma. Barkingly wonderful.
Flywheel (5th November 2024)