fRoots Review JULY 09

This just out...

Horses Brawl Wild Lament

“For their third album, Laura Cannell (recorders, fiddle) and Adrian Lever (bowed and prepared guitar) continue their progressive experiments and improvisations around tunes with roots in trad and early music. Though at times more inward-looking than hitherto, Wild Lament still converys the as-live essence of the urgency, intimacy and inventiveness of the duo’s music-making.”

factorium

We are practising at the factory today, my car is fixed (maybe I left the light on and it drained the battery...but how rubbish that one little bulb could do that! it's hardly my fault!)

We're running the sets for tomorrow's concert at The Red Hedgehog in Highgate, not really sure what to expect, will just have to wait and see.

There's a couple of new pieces in the pipeline, one of them has part of a Scottish tune written down and arranged by James Oswald in the 18th century and then collected in the notebook of an officer in George Washington's army and then ordered by me over the internet, so I have this little collection of tunes well travelled. The next bit has a new version of the Bellingham Boat, a northumbrian tune, slightly re-arranged. and I think there's also a reference to a Pierre Attaignment galliard.

hopefully we'll get a chance to develop that some more today and then we need to make some time to get some more gigs, so we can get on the road again. September and October are looking pretty good so far, and we have a few over the summer.

Laura
xxx

Songlines Magazine

Apparently Wild Lament is reviewed in Songlines Magazine which comes out tomorrow.
DOn't know what it'll be like, hope it's good. Watch out for it....

Red Hedgehog Pie

A slightly less stressful week this week. Monday night we played our first session at The Rumsey Wells, traditional Irish based, not Horses Brawl at all although Adrian and I were playing. It was also with the excellent Kate Ross and Tessa on flutes and whistles. It was really nice to sit and pass tunes around - having to think of a tune and keep it all up in the air was a good test, like a volley, we dropped it a couple of times.

Yesterday I also put together an article for The Recorder Magazine. Today, a bit of tune research, general practice and I'm giving a few fiddle lessons. Tomorrow, a couple of whistle workshops in Schools in Thetford. Thursday and Friday Horses Brawl rehearsals and a bit of onepage updating with our new album quotes and Saturday we have an afternoon and evening gig at The Red Hedgehog. Followed by Adrian's solo gig at Raveningham on Sunday afternoon...bit scared to look at next week, but I think the madness has calmed down a bit at least.

Feeling very positive about things, though am regretting trying a good violin, there's still no turning back!

Anyone want to by a baroque violin?

Derby Telegraph Review from Friday

We just got sent this from Friday which may or may not be put in the paper, but the review exists so here it is...

"Horses Brawl, Assembly Rooms, Derby, 12.6.09 (Mike Wheeler)

A band that cites Kathryn Tickell and Cecilia Bartoli among its influences has to be worth hearing. Horses Brawl comprises Laura Cannell - recorders, fiddle and (though not on this occasion, sadly) crumhorn - and Adrian Lever, guitar. Together they roam the overlap area between mediaeval and Renaissance music on the one hand and folk music on the other, picking up whatever takes their fancy, putting their material together in unexpected combinations, and seeing what emerges.

Mixing and matching composed music from Renaissance Spain and Italy, English folk dance tunes and traditional music from as far afield as Bulgaria and Bolivia, they blend these disparate elements to the point where it is sometimes not easy to hear where one stops and the other takes over.

Anything and everything can be grist to their mill. In 'Pase El Agua' they bounce a courtly love song from Renaissance Spain off a traditional tune which Adrian Lever brought back from a recent visit to Bulgaria. Landini's Ecco la Primavera is paired up with the English tune, The Bonny Miller. Another Bulgarian tune is blended with the second soprano part of Ludwig Senfl's motet Ave Rosa Sine Spinis.

All this is fascinating enough. But what makes the results so exciting and refreshing is the pair's virtuosity and sonic imagination. Laura Cannell doesn't just switch between treble and descant recorder, she occasionally plays both at the same time. On the violin she uses both a baroque and a modern bow, she mutes the lower two strings only to produce a hurdy-gurdy effect, and she plays the instrument guitar-style, using a plectrum. Adrian Lever's guitar-playing can be hauntingly subtle, or rhythmically incisive, with ear-deceiving percussion sounds, and he produces some magically resonant drone effects using Laura's violin bow.

And I bet you didn't know that you can use an Oyster card as a guitar mute."

The Times and Derby

On Friday night we played in Derby at the The Assembly Rooms. It was a great gig, very friendly audience and lots of autograph signings in the interval...!

Wild Lament is selling well and the reviews are still coming in. On Saturday there was a review in The Times Newspaper, see below:

"Impossible to pigeonhole the Horses Brawl duo, Laura Cannell and Adrian Lever. Armed with recorders, fiddle, guitar, and guest artist Philip Thorby, they build improvised fantasias from scraps of medieval chansons, folk music and other ancient history. Ancient, but not dead; your foot taps and heart sings as these virtuoso magpie musicians duck and weave, making Northumbrian hornpipes and Guillaume de Machaut share common ground. A breath of fresh air."
Geoff Brown, THE TIMES 4 out of 5 stars.

Yesterday my car decided to die just when I was going to pick up Adrian for our gig at The Locks in Geldeston... grrrrrr... but Marmalmade very kindly came and saved the day and got us to the gig which was really nice, a sunny mini festival at a pub by a lock, down a mile long track where Adrian and I both used to go when we were at school. Then the lovely Al was our next transporter, he picked us up from the middle of the countryside and took us to Raveningham to prepare for the concert in the cafe. We did a little guest appearance with Sian Croose and Big Sky Choir, to a small but appreciative audience. Then a lift back to norwich to have a drink at the Playhouse.

It was a long old week, but full of music and ideas and reviews (our interview in MUSO is also out now).

Time to make some bread now, the website is updated, the washing hung out and I need to try and work out how to buy a new fiddle and a car...

maybe some wine will help with my maths!

xxxx

WILD LAMENT by HORSES BRAWL OUT TODAY

There has been alot going on! And I had such good intentions of writing it down too!

Anyway to summerise:
The album is out today
We are on BBC Radio 3 tomorrow on 'In Tune'
I have just finished a mini baroque recorder and harpsichord tour.
Adrian has just finished a theatre project
We have been getting reviews for the new album in the following publications-
The Independent, The Guardian, Muso, Early Music Today with more to follow over the next couple of months.

I have received an award from The Musicians Benevolent Fund for a year's worth of study into fiddle techniques.

Fiona Talkington is going to play our CD on Late Junction on Radio 3 on June 23rd.

The London Launch is on June 20th at The Red Hedgehog in Highgate.

We are in Derby on Friday

It is all very exciting!

Swaledale Festival last week was great, fantastic beautiful lanscape and we met Clare Salaman, a fantastic multi-instrumentalist who was playing with the Ian MacMillan Orchestra.

We also supported Cara Dillon a couple of weeks ago, which was great! She was lovely and Adrian was really pleased to meet Ed Boyd.

I met Anthony Rowland Jones yesterday at my recorder concert in Cambridge....(that's for recorder geeks only!) which was really interesting.

and that's all for now, but there's still lots to catch up on.
xxxx