Tradition II

Ranagri are an Anglo-Irish four-piece combining vocals, guitars, bouzouki, flute, whistle, harp, bodhrán and drums, its name drawn from the town in Ireland where its singer and songwriter Donal Rogers grew up. Their 2014 debut, Fort of the Hare, was released on German label Stockfisch, and three more albums have followed, including a 2016 exploration of traditional songs before this second dip into the deep waters of the folk tradition.

It begins with a big song of death, mourning and haunting that is ‘The Wife of Usher's Well’. Eliza Marshall plays the flutes and whistles that help define Ranagri's ensemble sound, alongside the harp of Eleanor Dunsdon, and with the likes of ‘Lowlands of Holland’ and ‘The Unquiet Grave’, seal the feel of dread and death as if they were handfuls of clay. While a number of tracks sound like a lounge version of the tradition, warm and decently lit, but lacking that ‘otherness’ that typifies its most memorable songs, the flute, dulcimer and harp on ‘The Unquiet Grave’ carry intimations of the cold, dark and liminal, while ‘Lowlands’ shares the same kind of flowing, floating otherworldly feel.