New Album

I think we have 6 pieces finished now towards the new album, the summer is going to be our main writing time and three of the pieces we've written at my new house, so the rural loaction is working. We're still spending a bit of time at the factory though, on and off. I'm trying to work out what to do with my fiddle recording, I think it'll be a short limited run CD, then I can see how I feel. It is so different to what I am doing with HB and though that's where I began fiddling (playing trad Irish), it is another world.

Arts Council, Sweden and Norwich Arts Centre

It has been a particularly busy and interesting couple of months.
In May we had 7 concerts, one of which was recorded and broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction, we also found out that we have been awarded a grant from the Arts Council of England to do more collaborating with Philip Thorby and record our 3rd album. We've also been writing new pieces, two of which Adrian and I performed on Tuesday night at the arts centre... for now they are named - 'Perette et Joan' and 'Merula Telemann'.

It was a really friendly night at the arts centre, a howlback hum, with friends performing and watching each other, but none the less it was one of the scariest gigs we've done for a while, mainly because we performed our two newst pieces, which we weren't/aren't sure if we have finished.
Adrian has gone on the bus to Sweden to see his brother, and I'm trying to work out what to do with the fiddle recordings i made at the beginning of the week.

I think I must have been saving up lots of news to write down, this blog may become quite epic.....

fRoots album review

We just found out that Dindirin (released July 07) has just been review in fRoots. Some people think it's a bit harsh, I think it's fine, the criticisms highlight it's sparseness and starkness and suggests that perhaps that we are playing for our own satisfaction rather than for the audience..... but if you don't like something, it doesn't mean the performer shouldn't do it! What use is there in doing something you think people will like if your conviction lies in something which not everyone will like? I can live with those comments.....

Anyway, here it is:

fROOTs Magazine July 2008, p.59.

Horses Brawl
Dindirin Brawl Records BRAWL003

A fiddle/guitar duo, Horses Brawl – no apostrophe – also make frequent use of recorders and crumhorns as well as doing odd things to guitars, like playing them with an oyster card (they don’t say if still worked afterwards). Their material is drawn from 13th – 17th centuries plus European folk traditions but the sparsity of the instrumentation aligns their music much more with the earlier end of that spectrum. Nobody sings and the effect, even in the moments of “wild abandon”, (their words) is quite stark. Unquestionably, that can work, as on Bibit which builds up some serious intensity. Whether it’s something you could happily take in 40 minutes of at one sitting, without the additional input a live performance offers, is another question. It certainly isn’t ‘all the same’ but it is using, however inventively, a deliberately limited palette – you can see why polyphonic music caught on. Lest that seem too much of a downer, individual sections have a lot to offer, especially the near seamless move between La Gamba (The Leg, if my minimal knowledge of Italian serves) and Alca. This isn’t perhaps a record that you ‘get’ instantly, and there are occasions when the musicians are maybe playing for their own satisfaction rather than your listening pleasure, but some rewarding music is here to be discovered.
Nick Beale

Introduction

Welcome to the new Horses Brawl Blog, here you'll be able to find out about gigs, music, thoughts, issues and leave comments.