Vulpus

Fusing folk fiddle and guitar with dance music, the Somerset duo celebrate ten years together with their fourth album, Vulpus. Taking a foxy approach to instrumental dance, they blend a subtle rack of electronica with their acoustic chops from the off, with opening track ‘Tunnel Vision’ setting the pace before the limpid, luminous ‘The Singularity’ woozily emerges from its own shadow to a sunlit fiddle and whistle tune set against an underlay of electronics. It’s a fusion they achieve with aplomb, both here and on the likes of ‘Give em a Hand’.

‘How Soon is Normal’ is a more conventional kind of trad, its title referencing the far from normal period of the album’s making, through the spring and summer of 2020, while ‘Skulk’ seems to pick up the album’s vulpine theme, its percussive rhythm evoking, for me, the trot of the urban fox through the empty streets of lockdown. ‘The Fox’ – not quite the title song – sets up echo-laden fiddle across a punctuating acoustic guitar, segueing into a trio of tunes, while ‘Wolf Who Ate the Moon’ picks up from its percussive, bassy opening with oscillating keyboards, and drifts skywards on a dual fiddle and whistle riff.