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REVIEW FROM www.livingtradition.co.uk

 


 

 

 
BURD ELLEN, FRANKIE ARMSTRONG, ALASDAIR ROBERTS & JINNWOO - Green Ribbons 

BURD ELLEN, FRANKIE ARMSTRONG, ALASDAIR ROBERTS & JINNWOO - Green Ribbons 
Matière Mémoire MATME003CD 

Green Ribbons is a small group comprising four singers well versed in experimental folk collaboration but uniquely different in character – Frankie Armstrong, Debbie Armour (aka Burd Ellen), Alasdair Roberts and Ben Webb (aka Jinnwoo) – here all performing strictly a cappella on this special project dedicated to the celebration of unaccompanied song. Green Ribbons is also the title of this intimately conceived collection of traditional and newly composed songs. Some of the titles may initially engender a certain familiarity (and thus expectation), but the actual arrangements often prove seriously revelatory. Each singer gets a solo outing, while the remaining nine items feature refrain/chorus contributions from the other singers in various combinations (albeit rarely the full foursome at once).

Frankie’s mighty, imperious voice is in glorious unbridled flight on her own fiery political tract, A Question, which contrasts with her beautifully measured solo account of A Week Before Easter. Alasdair turns in a beautifully decorated solo account of Heathery Hills, while Debbie and Alasdair feature in neck-prickling duet mode on Here’s A Health. Debbie’s chosen version of the ballad Lady Margaret (from the singing of Paddy Tunney) enjoys some marvellously eerie counterpoint from Alasdair and Ben, and her intense rendition of The Well Below The Valley takes on a refrain that epitomises the very wellspring of the traveller tradition from which it’s sourced.

Ben’s personal trademark when working with the band Bird In The Belly is the innovative setting of forgotten lyrics, so he’s right in his element on the project’s title song (a variation on Once I Had A Sweetheart), but his three self-penned original songs here are even finer – truly extraordinary, and quite disturbing, creations inhabiting and conveying an authentic air of folklore while addressing psychological issues.

This fabulous celebration is neither unapproachable nor intimidating, and it succeeds royally in harnessing the too-often-unappreciated sheer power of a cappella as a performing medium and restoring the voice to its rightful place at the epicentre of folk storytelling.

www.matiere-memoire.com

David Kidman

 

This review appeared in Issue 131 of The Living Tradition magazine