Imagine the best possible night of traditional music. There are, perhaps, a dozen or so musicians crammed into an intimate venue, playing vibrant, forward-thinking folk music full of zest and humour and intense camaraderie, a camaraderie the band members share with the audience. Imagine that the music moves beyond traditionalism into more experimental realms without ever compromising the ferocity of its collaborative and political spirit. Finally, imagine that the band in question extend a kind of psychic reach over three cities. They are more than a one-off night in a pub, more than a collective. They are a network and a blueprint, a great laugh and a serious proposition. If your mind moves in the same way that mine does, the result of this little thought experiment might be something resembling Brown Wimpenny.
Brown Wimpenny formed in Manchester in 2023. Within weeks, their ranks had swelled to twenty-five, with members based in Liverpool and London. For a spell, they existed as an amorphous entity, a folk collective with the spirit of punk experimentation, traditional music’s answer to dada or situationism. By 2024, they had settled on a line-up of a mere eleven members and released a selection of brilliantly raw demos in January of that year. Their first single, The Sheffield Grinder/Black Joak, came out last year and was swiftly followed by Raglan Road. Both of those songs appear on the band’s full-length debut, Long Live Brown Wimpenny.
The Sheffield Grinder/Black Joak was quite an introduction. Accordionist James Brown takes lead vocals and sounds like Mark E. Smith or Pete Shelley fronting The Pogues. A minimal, thudding beat drives the song along at a punkish pace. It immediately becomes obvious that there is nothing else quite like Brown Wimpenny. The closest match might be labelmates Goblin Band, or perhaps Stick in the Wheel, but the energy here is unique and decidedly northern. Raglan Road shows a different side to the group. A tender duet performed over a sustained drone, it is joined by a flutter of plucked strings and then a freeform clatter of percussion, until it is overwhelmed by a buzz of discordance. This drops out, leaving just the vocal melody and some residual scratches and plucks. It’s an immensely powerful arrangement, and proof that there is a great deal of life left in the old songs, providing the band are willing to commit themselves fully.
The album features two long medleys. The first, Gaslight/Seanhamac Tube Station/The Sailors Wife/Lovely Bann Water, moves from a slow, mournfully lilting fiddle tune into a brisk dance, and then through a more dramatic ensemble phase led by the banjo. It ends with a stirring group a cappella rendition of Lovely Bann Water, which shows off the band’s considerable harmonic talents. The second medley, Often Drunk/Kings of Kerry/Teddybear Jig, was first encountered on the 2023 demo. It’s lost none of its raw appeal: a series of drones and squeaks, a vocal performance that is the epitome of ragged vulnerability, a taut sense of nervous energy, barely held back, and finally the release of a fast, exultant jig.
At the album’s core lies the extraordinary version of Jake Thackray’s Old Molly Metcalfe. The lyrics – essentially a shepherdess counting her sheep – become a kind of opera of repetition, an incantation that is as bewildering as it is moving. It works so well because the band are so fully in command of the texture and the dynamics, of the rises and falls in cadence that create the strange drama and suspense of the piece.
Elsewhere, O’Keefe’s/Farewell to Whalley Range is a sweet, melodic whistle tune that grows into a stomping, percussive barnstormer, and Jesus at Thy Command is a hymn that builds in power as it goes along, moving from almost lullaby-like serenity to a rousing middle section full of martial drums and strident horns, before settling into a delicate, graceful outro. Closing track Pratty Flowers (Holmfirth Anthem), a song from the Yorkshire village carol tradition, is a mesh of combined voices, recalling groups like the Watersons. And that’s not a bad comparison to end with, because, like The Watersons, Brown Wimpenny are both iconoclastic and deeply-rooted in tradition. It works so well precisely because it’s not a conscious decision. They are simply playing the songs that mean the most to them, in open collaboration and in a vernacular that is entirely their own, and in doing so, they have created a folk music that resounds with originality and freshness.
Long Live Brown Wimpenny (June 5th, 2026) Broadside Hacks Recordings
Bandcamp: https://brownwimpenny.bandcamp.com/album/long-live-brown-wimpenny
Upcoming shows:
6 JUNE // Manchester, St. Margaret’s Church [Headline]
12 JUNE // London, MOTH CLUB [headline]
25 JULY // Lancashire, Seek Out festival
26 JULY // Birkenhead, Future Yard [Headline]