Curlicue

This album brings together two talented British instrumentalists, both of them graduates of the Folk and Traditional Music course at Newcastle University: flautist Freya Rae (who also plays clarinet and whistles here) and guitarist and banjo player Louis Bingham. Curlicue consists of sets of jigs and reels and a pair of hornpipes: Irish, Scottish and Breton tunes. The mix of instrument combinations keeps the tone and timbre varied, from flute and banjo on the lively ‘Kitchen Jigs’ to clarinet and guitar on the moody main Breton set. Rae's flute playing, especially, has melodic vim and rhythmic vigour, and she spars seamlessly with Bingham's more modest, sure-fingered guitar picking on Danish/Breton set ‘Hopsa and Plinn’.

The album ends in style, however. An exquisite solo tune by Bingham features just the lightest of guitar lines and an accompanying harmonic drone, which segues into a double hornpipe featuring guest nyckelharpa support from Bingham's mother, Griselda Sanderson. Then a lively set of reels sends the listener into the night.