An Introduction to Eliza Carthy

Eliza Carthy's current combo is The Wayward Band. It's a good name: she has, throughout her career, championed English folk music, but waywardly, giving it an enlivening shake. Sometimes she veers off into the musical undergrowth but, as she is so accomplished a singer, fiddle player and writer too, always with interesting results.

This is a generous compilation: 15 songs and tunes drawn from eight albums. They range from her first solo venture in 1996, Heat, Light and Sound - represented by an energetic version of ‘Cold, Wet & Rainy Night’ and the vigorous and joyful ‘The Grand Hornpipe’ – to the folk wall of sound of ‘Fade & Fall (Love Not)’ from last year's Big Machine. The ballad ‘Clark Saunders’, a bleak tale of sororicide, is sung boldly, unaccompanied, while ‘Red Rice’, from her foray into electronica, is swathes of synthesized sound layered with choppy beats. ‘Time in the Son’ demonstrates her writing talent, the atmosphere created by her intriguing lyrics as important as their literal meaning, which is something inherited perhaps from her aunt and uncle, Lal and Mike Waterson. Carthy is happily wayward in dealing with traditional songs: ‘Willow Tree’ from Anglicana emerges as slow, sleazy jazz, proving just how versatile both she, and the tradition of English music she inhabits, can be.