Off Beaten Tracks

There’s a palpable electricity to an Urban Folk Quartet gig. It surges through the musicians and into the crowd when they put bow to string or hand to drum. Off Beaten Tracks is the band’s second album and follows a whirlwind three-year career that has seen The UFQ rise into the folk scene consciousness, and just continue rising. With an arsenal of instruments between them, Joe Broughton (fiddle, guitar, octave guitar and mandolin), Paloma Trigas (fiddle, voice), Frank Moon (oud, guitar, octave guitar, voice) and Tom Chapman (percussion, voice) deftly slip from genre to genre. The quartet explore links between Afro-beat, Cuban son, and techno and funk, to name but a few, with a recognisably folk feel.

The opening track ‘Jaleo Bus/Up In The Air’ takes in two Menorca-inspired tunes that warm slowly until that fiesta feeling is unmistakable. The brilliantly tight fiddle playing and driving rhythm of ‘One River Reel’ give an edge to the old Texan number, ‘Dink’s Song.’ The quartet shows a more serious side with the intense Middle Eastern-influenced ‘Zephyr’ with some beautiful fiddle and oud interplay. Chapman’s percussion underpins the whole album but really shines with a stellar solo in the adrenalin-filled ‘Storm Chasers’. The lilting Turkish folk story of ‘Kiz Kulesi’ leads the album towards a more mellow end with the gently stirring ‘Dandelion.’ While not quite communicating the exuberance of their live set, Off Beaten Tracks is an emotionally charged masterpiece in its own right, bearing repeated listenings and offering up new insights with each.