It’s one of the strengths of the current British folk scene that its leading musicians keep regrouping in different bands. So after False Lights and Leveret comes this distinguished new trio, in which guitar hero Martin Simpson teams up with singer and fiddle-player Nancy Kerr and squeezebox star Andy Cutting. They are all fine soloists and accompanists, and the result is varied set dominated by new songs about politics, history and nature. It starts with Dark Swift and Bright Swallow, a poignant, atmospheric piece by Simpson matching stories of bird-watching and wartime tragedy, and is followed a jaunty, accordion-led American String Band instrumental and the first of Kerr’s ecological warning ballads. The traditional songs include Simpson’s thoughtful treatment of The Plains of Waterloo, the instrumentals include Cutting’s melodic and elegant Seven Years, while the finale is a bluesy reworking of Lal Waterson’s Some Old Salty.
