‘Spectres’ by Tom Moore & Archie Moss
Review by Colin Hynson
Tom Moore, violin and viola, and Archie Moss, diatonic accordion/melodeon, have both been fixtures on the folk scene for some time now – as musicians in their own right, as two–thirds of the well–regarded folk trio Moore Moss Rutter and lastly as a duo. They released their first album together in 2017. It was called ‘Laguna’ and it put down a marker for two musicians who remain grounded in traditional music but have integrated subtle electronica and sound effects into many of their tracks.
This exploration of the boundaries of traditional music continues with their latest album ‘Spectres’ (the first release for Slow Worm Records, a Norfolk–based record company). The sleeve notes say that all of the music on this album ‘originates’ from the viola and melodeon (with the exception of some sampling on a couple of tracks). It’s an interesting word to use. No electronic instruments like the synthesiser here but electronic sounds emerging from both instruments.
Track number one, ‘Gusts’, immediately sets the album off on its chosen path. A spectral, drone–like quality from Moss’s accordion punctuated by a repeating theme from the viola. It should be a soothing piece of music but it’s strange and a little disconcerting - but in a good way.
Now we’ve entered familiar territory. The title track comes next. It starts off sounding very much like a traditional acoustic piece of music but soon the introduction of sampling reminds us of what this album is about. Moving on, purist lovers of traditional music will appreciate the sublime duet–playing on the next two tracks ‘Pop One’ and ‘Oculus’.
‘Giga and ‘Lek’ both use rhythms that are nods to traditional dance forms with more than a hint of reels and jigs on each track. ‘Pigeon City’ returns us to the slower and more melodic themes of the start of the album and is the second and last track to feature sampling. Back to some more lively duetting on ‘Omens’.
On the home straight now and there’s a short quiet melodeon–led piece called ‘Green Belt’. Could this be a reference to those protected areas of countryside around our cities or to what was originally a Christian music festival? Through the penultimate ‘Windmill Hill’ and finishing with ‘Balbis’ – a track that would not be out of place as the soundtrack to folk horror movie.
Fans of traditional folk, followers of Hauntology - electronic music that draws on a mythical urban and rural past - and those who listen to bands like Penguin Café Orchestra will all find something on this album to satisfy them. Moore and Moss clearly respect traditional music forms very much, but still want to take it in new directions. There was never any intention to tear up the folk rule book but simply to add a few paragraphs to make it a little bit richer.
You can download Spectres from Bandcamp: https://duomooremoss.bandcamp.com/album/spectres
‘Spectres’ by Tom Moore & Archie Moss. Slow Worm Records 2020
How lovely to have a new CD plop onto the doormat during lockdown. Jenna and David recorded this last year but kept it back as their expectations of performing it live in 2020 were thwarted. Now seems the right time for release as the promise of venues reopening is on the cards and organisers become eager to start rebooking. Hopefully soon the duo will be able to show Wheel and Dive off to the world.
There are a couple of new songs: Jenna’s title track Wheel and Dive which uses piano, and the song of a Devon skylark from 1966, is an eco-song for our times, and David’s Sea Change which is a homage to the East Coast fishing industry in decline. The duo have successfully recreated several cotemporary classics: Richard Thompson’s Waltzing for Dreamers, Joni Mitchell’s Case of you and John Martyn’s Hurt in Your Heart, all given the distinct Jenna and David treatment. Tom Waits’ The Briar and the Rose is sung a capella; they are right to call it ‘traditional sounding but non-traditional’. It work
“Herding Cats” is the debut album by Berkshire-based quintet Wolfnote. The band comprises four women (Gill McCoy, Bex Rennie, Ceri Rushent and Ann-Marie Thomas) and one man, Mike Tuffery, the elder statesman of the band, so to speak. They are highly versatile, as they all sing, all play a stringed instrument of some sort, they have two recorder players (Bex and Ceri) and two percussionists (Mike and Ann-Marie).
Here is a real cornucopia of catchy cheerful ceilidh band tunes led by the very versatile Val on a variety of different recorders – ranging from the energising fast fingerwork on garklein, sopranino and descant on several tracks, to the mellower tones of treble, tenor and great bass on others.
If you were in the audience at the Canopy Theatre in Beccles on October 31, you will have seen two first-rate performers: Finn Collinson and Zoe Wren. Since that evening Zoe has released her long-awaited 10-track album. I have been l lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this excellent album. Here is my longer-than-usual review. First some information about Zoë herself.
On listening to this 6-track Ep from the Cambridge-based band Red Velvet, I felt with each track that I was being taken back to another time of sepia colours and pork pie hats. The CD begins with the title track If Hawks Were Doves where I could imagine myself sat in an old time, honky-tonk bar drinking in the atmosphere. In some ways this song would fit well as the theme tune to a 70s comedy show, the words paint a story and the blues piano break in the middle fits perfectly. 
The Silburys are a full-band extension of Silbury Hill, the well-known guitar, mandolin, flute duo playing regularly around East Anglia. Here, Scott Dolling and David Stainer are joined by Diz Deacon on bass / 12-string, and Martin Linford on drums. When this live album arrived on my doorstep for review, I was delighted to realise I had been at the event when this was recorded and am one of the lucky listeners who can reminisce from my armchair.