The Emily Askew Band
Alchemy
Askew Records
Pick
at random an album from your music collection.
When were the songs written? Were they from a couple of years, twenty-five
or fifty years ago? Does it feature a cover version perhaps of a classic from
yesteryear? The Emily Askew Band have
crafted a thrilling debut album featuring songs and compositions from five
hundred years of music from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.
Medieval,
Renaissance and Baroque tunes are skilfully brought back to life through a folk
music interpretation of the source music.
The band have little to influence them. They can’t tap into famous
examples of their music like a jazz, rock or country artist can. Thus, their bravery in ploughing a furrow of
Early Music, knowing mainstream appeal is unlikely, has left its mark on me.
The
band has a great knowledge of harmony in blending fiddle, viola, bagpipes,
recorder, guitar and frame drum to perfection.
If I knew the recorder could sound this good, I would have gladly
mastered a third song after Three Blind Mice and Go and Tell Aunt Nancy. If I was a music teacher I would play this
album to my students at the start of the new term to challenge perceptions that
pop and hip-hop are not the only genres of music.
Each
tuneful catch on this album has been chosen with great care and relevance from
all walks of life. There are dances, songs of devotion, songs of love, songs of
joy and songs from the Court. English,
Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin texts, manuscripts and melodies
have been hand-picked and added to the merrily melting pot of this album, Alchemy, whose magical ingredient is a
little more fun via the folk.
NE
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