MEDIAEVALBAEBES release new album 'The Huntress’ - out 5November 2012 on Queen of Sheeba - http://www.mediaevalbaebes.com
On 5 November 2012 Mediaeval Babes are to releasetheir new album. the album will be supported by the following UK dates.
11th OctoberBewdley Festival16th NovemberRochester Cathedral
December8 Norwich Cathedral13 Gloucester Cathedral14 Ely Cathedral15 Peterborough Cathedral21 St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (the NationalMusicians Church)
It’s fifteen years since the Mediaeval Baebes firstappeared, adding a layer of knowing glamour to the sometimes fusty world ofearly music, shamelessly trading in baebe power to the delight of a public thatlapped it up even as some of the purists sniffed. In the intervening period,Baebes have come and gone (and even been born), and what was once animaginatively presented niche act is no longer an outlier. In Britain andbeyond young musicians have reconnected with a folk tradition of strangenessand storytelling and the power of their unadorned vocals sounds morecontemporary than ever. No wonder The Huntress, their seventh studio album,contains a version of ‘Cruel Sister’, the old murder ballad that was the titletrack of both Pentangle’s 1970 album and the Unthanks’ 2005 debut.
Katharine Blake, musical director and leader and nowthe sole original Baebe, is delighted with the results. “It’s been moresatisfying, more realised and closer to what I hear in my head.” Although shedescribes producing, writing, performing editing and mixing as “a recipe forinsanity”, The Huntress was worth the struggle. Loosely themed around the ideaof ‘feminine energy’, the adapted sources which Blake has arranged for femalevoices range from Byron’s ‘She Walks In Beauty’ and Ben Johnson’s ‘Queen andHuntress’ to the mediaeval Arabic poetry of ‘Clasp of A Lion’ and old Latin of ‘Dianae’(‘Of Diana’ the huntress, and appropriately pronounced DNA). ‘Jennet’s Song’uses a transcript of the famous Pendle witch trial as a lyric, while lesstragically ‘Care Away’ tells of a henpecked husband (and features The MediaevalBloakes, an impromptu choir of musicians and friends). References to the moonabound, unsurprisingly.
Blake considers the two discs that make up the albumto split between folk and classical, the first record perhaps more accessible,the second part more esoteric. And with familiar songs like ‘Cruel Sister’ anda take on standard ‘She Moved through The Fayre’ as well as the instantlyfamiliar ‘Lenten Is Come’ and newly penned, notably percussive ‘Cathedral ofSong’ she has a point.
Yet the divide is not always obvious. ‘Veni VeniBella’, already accompanied by a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0v7nv2s3tQis perfectly appealing, despite the archaic Latin lyric. The‘Moorish jazz’ of ‘Clasp Of A Lion’ is eerily exotic (‘panting gazelle in theclasp of a lion’, indeed), while its sister piece, the knowingly spooky ‘Phantom’,where Esther Dee’s high vocal terrifies while an ancient groove is laid downbeneath, genuinely defies time and genre. Concluding with an arrangement of ‘DiesIrae’, the Catholic doomsday hymn, it’s hardly lightweight stuff.
“It’s a choir. And it’s a band,” says Blake, neatlysumming up the Baebes unique dichotomy. And it’s not like anything else. Askedif she can hear anything of her music in any contemporaries, Blake mightcompare a particular song or effect to Philadelphia’s Espers, Steve Reich’ssystems music or even the other KB, Kate Bush. But The Huntress is truly suigeneris.
Thinking of buying something on Amazon? Use the linkbelow to give Leicester Bangs a divvy of the filthy lucre.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder