Folk Process

When do original songs enter into the folk process, shedding that singular point of origin for the rough and tumble of public ownership? For singer and folklorist George Hoyle, AKA Cunning Folk, the “folk process” is how music, stories and rituals are transmitted through communities, how authored works become authorless, entering the vernacular, whether that’s on football terraces or karaoke machine. Here, Cunning Folk follows up his excellent 2020 set A Casual Invocation with the pop and rock of a 1980s childhood, refashioned into banjo-led performances with a steely core and vocal style that follows its own line, whether on Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’, Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘Killing Moon’, Happy Monday’s ‘Wrote for Luck’ or Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’ – the latter a spectral highlight. The set as a whole is reminiscent of Martin Carthy’s take on Slade’s ‘Cum on Feel the Noise’ for Imagined Village. The folk process starts from here.