There are flickerings, scratches and scritches echoing and haunting Christ Church this evening. As late July sunlight pours into the place, blinding those on stage, things half forgotten, less than half remembered, sit, patiently, and wait.
OWEN SPAFFORD & LOUIS CAMPBELL are young, their brilliant debut album just released, and are right at the forefront of folk's new instrumental wing, yet they magic up moments of strangely unsettling beauty. Beauty that seems much older, to reach back to a place of a perfect childhood viewed through a dusty, ancient stereoscope.
A stereoscope is an interesting thing. A Victorian contraption that allows you to see in 3D when two versions of the same image are placed side by side. Pleasingly, Spafford & Campbell fit neatly into this metaphor. They are, seemingly, two very different people. Campbell is confident and chatty, with a bone-dry wit and the ability to make his guitar glisten. He's been a part of Sam Sweeney's band and is, clearly, used to fashioning quicksilver from six strings. Spafford is quieter, shy and halting sometimes. There are moments when he seems to gently, hesitantly ease himself into tunes but then takes flight with alarming grace. Sometimes it feels as though the two of them are playing different tunes until you realise that they're giving you different perspectives of the same, making everything 3D.
Very often it's Campbell's guitar that drives the tunes along. He plucks, insistently, at a single note before providing a propulsive rhythm that unveils a landscape of rolling hills, of lush Englishness. Above him circles Spafford's violin, caught by the currents. They create time-lapse music, the shifting of perceptions as clouds scud across fields, changing texture and tone. It's as timeless, as intoxicating as nature itself.
Taken from the debut album, You, Golden, Adson's is an instrumental inspired by a walk in Leeds. Spafford grew up there and there are, undoubtedly, nostalgic shimmers sprinkled through the tune. It starts sleepily, a childish fist rubbing away morning fuzziness, before guitar and violin become bolder, louder. Like the breeze wafting snatches of tunes towards you, there are tiny fragments of nursery rhyme and the wyrd themes of kids shows from the 70s, they flutter and then dart away before you can put your finger on them. It's as though there's an old music box tinkling away behind a boarded-up door. Slightly spooky, oddly comforting.
On Lullabies, Campbell cradles his guitar as though it were injured, coaxing melodies, cooing to it softly. Spafford scratches on his violin, creating radio interference or the crackle of a 78. The space around the two means that this is no Folk Horror nightmare, more an echo of a friendly past. When Campbell ends with an unaccompanied version of the traditional counting song, I'll Have One Man To Mow Me Down My Meadow, the nostalgic burst is complete. If this sounds a bit naff, it is anything but. It's quite moving really.
For the encore, Pop Goes The Weasel seems to peek from the dizzying interplay between the two instruments. It's playful and is a reminder that all of these great things we listen to have their roots way back in our past. Louis Campbell & Owen Spafford nod to those memories that sit quietly in the shadows, they connect the ground with the air and make memories solid.
In a similar way, MINNIE BIRCH weaves a world around us too. She describes herself as "quite a mellow support act, more a gentle caress" and, along with Kathy Pilkinton on banjo, she is exactly that. Her voice is high with an indie-folk vulnerability at its edges and infuses the start of the evening with a pleasantly hazy atmosphere, like blowing dust from old photos. A handful of her own songs have you reaching for the Vashti Bunyan/Karen Dalton/Linda Perhacs comparisons. Not that her voice sounds like any of these but the feeling's the same. A version of her own Up and Down, taken from the Company of Players Shakespeare Songs album, proves that she is a clever and gifted songwriter too.
Flickerings, scratches and echos may have haunted Christ Church Downend this evening, but it was the best kind of haunting, one that brought back the best of times.
Words: Gavin McNamara
Photos: Barry Savell
We round off our Summer season with one of the most exciting young duos on the UK folk scene. OWEN SPAFFORD & LOUIS CAMPBELL met as as part of the first cohort of the National Youth Folk Ensemble. Since forming their duo in 2018, they have been nominated for the BBC Young Folk Award and been played on BBC Radio 2 and 3, as well as RTE1. A shared musical ‘true north’ and lasting friendship enable the duo to make two instruments seemingly sound as one; creating subtle and emotive textures that re-calibrate the fiddle and guitar duo idiom.
Their debut album You, Golden manages to envelop influences from contemporary classical, post-rock, ECM Jazz and bluegrass cohesively and organically into English folk music with a combination of traditional and contemporary material which is sonically indistinguishable in origin. It was recorded entirely live in a barn in the Oxfordshire countryside in just two and a half days and has seen remarkable critical acclaim for such a new act.
The duo’s live performances present an extraordinary sense of musical intimacy, covering the full dynamic spectrum, with as much of themselves being put into every note as possible. For technically advanced young musicians they hold an unusual allegiance to the beauty of simplistic melodies, putting their musical point across as clearly and honestly as then can.
Opening the evening’s entertainment will be singer-songwriter MINNIE BIRCH, who creates honest, beautiful music in the folk tradition about love, loss, life, fairytales and football! Based in Hertfordshire, Minnie has toured all over the world, received national Radio play on BBC Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music. She has won the Fatea Innovators award and the Laurel Canyon Music Award, and her last album was named a Sunday Times Top 100 record of the year. After some time out for ill health Minnie is back recording, releasing and performing new music. She’ll be joined for this performance by Kathy Pilkinton.
Tickets for the concert, which takes place at CHRIST CHURCH DOWNEND on Friday 21 July 2023, are available online HERE and from MELANIE'S KITCHEN in Downend (cash only). They are priced at £14 each in advance or £16 on the door. Doors open at 7.30pm and the entertainment starts around 7.45pm.
There will be a bar, stocking cider, soft drinks, wine, hot drinks and real ale from locally-based HOP UNION BREWERY. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own glass/mug/tankard, as well as reusable bottles for water, as part of the drive to be more environmentally aware; there is a 50p discount for those that do. There will also be sweet treats available at the bar courtesy of Radstock-based THE GREAT CAKE COMPANY, as well as a prize draw, which helps to fund the support artists for each concert.
For further information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Almost exactly nine years ago Downend Folk & Roots peeked, slightly hesitantly, into the world. Back then it was Downend Folk Club but the first, proper, headline act was BELLA HARDY, fresh from winning The BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year award. She was astonishing that night and gave the folk club a glow of confidence that, to be honest, it's never lost. Tonight, Bella Hardy returned to Downend for a rapturously received set. She was, to put it simply, magnificent.
The first thing that you notice about Bella Hardy is that she is effortless. Everything that she does seems entirely natural, she makes the difficult look easy. Set opener, Summer Daylight Winter Darkness, is an instrumental tune, Hardy's fiddle in harmonious, excited conversation with Danny Wallington's keyboards. SAM CARTER's guitar joins just as the tune becomes Hares on the Mountain. They slide together beautifully, all three taking this very familiar song and reminding just why we all love it so. Her fiddle and Carter's guitar have a resonant depth, working as a perfect contrast to Hardy’s voice which is playful and full of winking charm.
Hardy is a masterful storyteller. On The Herring Girl she tells of strong women living tough lives but does so with an assurance and eloquence that few have. Violin and guitar, again, combining to help tell the story and the piano filling in the details. The Navigator's Bride is another female story, another important voice, another that looks at the male world with a sense of bewilderment. Hardy inhabits these people but, unlike so many folk songs, there's no sense of the victim here. There's a twinkle amongst the toughness as the trio build to a beautiful crescendo.
Her own songs have the same timelessness that any number of trad songs have. When she does dip into the canon, however, her interpretations have subtleties that lesser artists can't hope to match. Awake Awake (also known as Drowsy Sleeper or Silver Dagger) comes from her latest album, Love Songs, and is a showcase for her extraordinary voice. Freed of the violin she allows Carter to provide the pop-tinged stylings whilst Hardy coos soothingly. My Johnny was a Shoemaker is more upbeat, full of whoops, and has that quality that's impossible to put your finger on, you can just feel it in your heart. Loving Hannah is best known for the Mary Black version but Hardy's version does incredible justice to it, her voice just as good as the Irish superstar's. Carter, intricate and delicate once again.
An a capella take on Down to the River sees jaws dropping and hearts exploding. Echoes of Alison Krauss, of course, but Hardy, once again, proves that she is a match for any of the great female singers you could name. As befits an artist who is ten albums into her career and has made music influenced by Japan, America and the British Isles, her willingness to try anything proves that she is a graceful master of her art.
The set ends with Tequila Moon, a song that sways with a heat-haze shimmer. On this humid evening it seems the perfect fit, plucked violin creating a ukulele strum, piano and guitar setting up a porch-swing rhythm whilst Hardy sleepily, easily sends us off, humming into the night.
Before Hardy's triumphant return was HANNAH SCOTT, a singer of contemporary folk songs who easily held a capacity Downend in the palm of her hand. By the end of her short set, she had opened her heart and shown us the inner workings of her soul. Every song that hit the hardest uncovered something about the relationships that she has with those closest to her. My Dad & I was wonderfully sweet, her high voice never wavering. The Boy in the Frame is about her beloved grandmother and also carries huge emotion within the most delicate vessel. Just piano and voice, yearning and memory.
All of this emotion is dealt with with the lightest of touches. It is, however, with Skimming Stones that Scott's potential as future headliner can be seen, as clear as day. Taken from her lovely new EP, Ancient Lights, it is almost hymnlike, graceful and impossibly moving. If only the words "radio friendly" didn't carry nasty connotations then Skimming Stones is radio friendly. It's the sort of song that could easily connect with everyone.
Both Scott and Hardy have an easy charm and, I suspect, both will be welcomed back to Downend time and time again.
Words: Gavin McNamara
Photos: Barry Savell
Page 9 of 105