Natural Invention

After four decades with Steeleye Span, in 2009 fiddle player Peter Knight formed Gigspanner (the touring musician's name for that vital but oft forgotten piece of equipment, the bottle opener) with guitarist Roger Flack and percussionist Sacha Trochet. In 2016 the duo Edgelarks (multiinstrumentalists Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin) joined and now Bellowhead's melodeon player John Spiers completes the line-up. It's a big band, but Natural Invention, their first studio album, proves that there's plenty of space for all; they shine individually, and meld coherently.

Cecil Sharp collected ‘Searching for Lambs’ and described it as ‘a most perfect example of a folk song.’ A shepherd's daughter is out looking for her father's sheep when a young man declares his love and appeals to her to stay. Here, this simple, charming song unwinds into a beautiful, entwining instrumental. They're making love in the meadow? Sure, but they're living happily ever after, too.

Throughout the ten tracks the arrangements are original and apt, inventive and natural. ‘Daddy Fox’, which reads like a Roald Dahl story, is a happy-go-lucky, exuberant excursion, with the swing characteristic of Dartmoor music. The approaches to ‘Long a Growing’ and ‘Betsy Bell and Mary Grey’ are very di.erent, but each captures the particular tragedy of their story. And there are wonderful details: the sonorous dobro here, a delicate concertina run there, a burst of electric guitar. Each member is an excellent musician, and they work sympathetically together. More than this, their knowledge of the canon of folk song is profound.