A folk column in a national newspaper is a precious, rare beast. Such beasts need to pay attention to their regular sources of sustenance, but also find new morsels that will keep it alive. To this end, meet Solasta, an absurdly young trio of fiddler Elisabeth Flett, cellist Hannah Thomas and guitarist Jamie Leeming, who crowdfunded this debut album through Kickstarter last summer. The results are arresting, involving and inventive, fizzing with ideas about folk music’s instrumental past and its future.
A Cure for the Curious begins with descending, harshly scraped strings – a bold, jolting start – before plunging us into the Greek folk of The Plate Smasher. Every playing style is thrown boldly into the mix thereafter: gorgeous, long drones on the beautifully mournful Lost and Found, technically blazing passages at speed in The Pirate Set, strings as the textures of cresting waves in the beautiful Whitecaps. The compositions are inspired by folk originals or early music, or are inventive twists on old songs: Reels and The Hornpipe Set both reinvent ancient wheels. The latter’s final passage, particularly, is having so much fun you’d swear it won’t stop after the fade-out.
Two songs on the album also make you yearn for more. A racing version of the 17th-century Bedlam Boys – one of the first known songs about madness – is compelling stuff, the women’s star, Scottish and Welsh voices repeating the chorus compulsively, the tune’s final note cleverly not resolving. Ewan MacColl’s Terror Time, about the fear of winter for the poor worker, is also given a desperately sad, modern charge. Bring on more from this new generation.
This week’s other picks
The Breath’s gorgeous, warmly textured second album, Let the Cards Fall, has folk roots but different horizons. It is led by the jaw-droppingly stunning, woozy voice of Ríoghnach Connolly, and fans of Mazzy Star and Beth Gibbons will love it. Richard Durrant’s Stringhenge possibly has the maddest title of all time, but juxtaposes Bach and English folk tunes with tons of adventure. Two other great song-based albums are also out this month: Kitty Macfarlane’s Namer of Clouds, a gently experimental collection of ballads and folk-inspired originals from a remarkably accomplished young lyricist and 13 Rivers, a fabulous, rocking and rolling record by some legend called Richard Thompson. Those older sources still satisfy.
