At Fargrounds

Jacken Elswyth is a banjo player and instrument maker known for her work as a member of the Shovel Dance Collective. On her third solo album, the London-based musician demonstrates her deep connection with her instruments. She builds using cherry, oak and walnut, and plays with a sensitivity for what she has created.

Elswyth plays banjo, mountain banjo and shruti box on a mix of traditional tunes and original live improvisations, accompanied by Kate Gathercole on fiddle and harmonium and Mark Waters on double bass. While the shruti box provides the meditative drone, the banjo, fiddle and harmonium work melodies over the top.

This instrumental collection is a curious mix of the tuneful and the experimental. The album lurches from distinctive melodies to moments of discordant soundscape in a way that is in danger of not satisfying any but the most eclectic of tastes. That said, the best of the banjo tunes – ‘Lost Gander’, ‘Sugar Hill’ and ‘A Fisherman’s Song for Attracting Seals / Full Rigged Ship’ – are wonderful, but be prepared for the occasional jarring note in among the rolling crests of the musical waves.