A Different Way To Round Off An Album
As I've said previously, I tend to buy quite a few second hand CDs. I had this idea that I'd start posting reviews here, the upshot of which is that rather than ending up writing lots of reviews and boring you all, I end up with CDs slowly piling up next to the computer, so it's probably time to start rectifying this again.
That said I didn't buy the CD currently on the top of the pile and second one isn't second-hand, so that first sentance is complete rubbish and I probably should throw it out the window and start again, but we'll carry on and see where this goes instead.
Anyway, top of the pile is a copy of "Silkie" by Frock which I picked up from bagrec at the first Blackheath practice I went to. Hands up who's heard of them then? No-one? Oh well, there's a surprise. I hadn't either.
Frock were a psychedelic folk-rock group in the late 70s presumably based somewhere around SE London given the last track. The album does have a similar feel to it to some of the work of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span and is generally well executed throughout. Instrumentally the album is dominated by traditional instruments (particularly fiddle) mixed with electric piano, which works really well as a combination giving it the whole folk with a contemporary edge feel.
They also benefit from a really strong vocalist and on many of the tracks (not the instrumental ones obviously) they're able to let her just take the center of attention.
In short, this is an album composed of 9 excellent folk-rock tracks. Apparently, it's so good it's worth £137 (at least that's what someone recently paid for it on ebay), but I'm not sure I'd go that far.
And if your not satisfied with the first 9 tracks, they round the album off with something a little different. Namely this:
The Blackheath Morris Stick Throwing Dance (mp3) ( via bagrec)
As the name implies, it's an audio recording of morris dancing, namely Blackheath performing their own special version of "Young Collins" to a backing of Frock.
It's utterly excellent! The world clearly needs more audio recordings of morris dancing...