Cold Light

The Bideford-based folk duo's last album celebrated Devonian postman poet Edward Capern, but with Cold Light the two fiddle players, composers and singers embark on a deeper journey into the past and the folk tradition. Ancient melodies and traditional dance tunes are combined with newly written songs that touch on personal stories – the same kinds of stories that enter the tradition and remain there, to instruct, entertain and divert, whether that be the mysteries of ‘Riddles Wisely Expounded’, or the likes of ‘Tie the Petticoat Higher/The Triumph’, dances from the Quantocks and Cornwall respectively. There's also the Swedish ‘Systerpolska’, ‘La Folia’ from South America and a Dartmoor tune, ‘William Andrew's Hornpipes’, collected by the legendary Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (author of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’). These sit alongside the duo's own works, such as Driscoll's ‘Halo’, addressing the cases of historic abuse that have come to light in recent years, or Wyke's ‘Who's Crying Now?’, addressing the confining architectures of addiction. The fiddle playing and tune arrangements are strong and clear, with touches of brass, bagpipes and accordion deftly included here and there to expand the palette of acoustic sounds.