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DAVE TOWNSEND & GILL REDMOND - New Road To Alston

DAVE TOWNSEND & GILL REDMOND - New Road To Alston
WildGoose Studios WGS392CD

For those among you who feel drawn to concertina/cello duets honed to fine precision on mostly English Trad tunes, this album will be a delight. Without a shadow of doubt this pair have a charming mutual understanding, and have chosen their material well.

The title track is a cute tune that, as its title suggests, hails from the North of England, and indeed seven of the 14 offerings here have similar origins, which sold it to me anyway, even before I heard it. I wasn’t disappointed. Some I felt I ought to recognize – two hornpipes by William Irwin for example, or the Yorkshire medley - but they hooked me in as if new. Sadly, the best I can say about the five songs included here, is that they were accompanied competently (and made me appreciate the sets of tunes better). This is best illustrated by the final medley (I’ll Touzle Your Kerchie / All Around The World / Whip Her And Gird Her), which builds from a simple concertina solo to an uproarious finish. If only the rest of the CD were the same.

The album is pretty well packaged though, with well researched notes and all salient points covered. Reasonably good value also – more than an hour’s music here so in balance it delivers what the artistes set out to achieve – rollicking good tunes on their chosen instruments, premier league stuff (with a few songs in between from lower divisions).

Grem Devlin

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This album was reviewed in Issue 96 of The Living Tradition magazine.