Wicked Light

Members of this young folk ensemble began their various musical careers playing spontaneously on the streets of France, Switzerland and their home base of the Netherlands. The original string band line-up of guitar, cello, violin and double bass has since been augmented by mandolin, accordion, ukulele and drums, boosting the collective to a nine piece.

Wicked Light is their second album following 2020's Ariège and their unique selling point is that there are genuinely no borders here in an organic and vibrant repertoire sung in numerous languages and drawing on diverse folk traditions from all over the globe. ‘Shenma Survilma Damlia’ is a traditional Georgian tune, ‘La Petenera’ is a South American trad tune with an arrangement inspired by Inti Illimani, and ‘Hemels Dauwe’ is an ancient Dutch folk song featuring the rousing tones of guest trumpeter Jaap de Vries. The other seven songs are new compositions, mostly written by Annelies Jonkers and Ari Ari, two of the band's four female singers/multi-instrumentalists covering a variety of styles from Celtic trad (the title track) to Americana (‘It Burns’) via classic English folk balladry (‘Lord Horse’).

Everything is played with great groove and much gusto and if any folk festival programmers are reading, I bet Legiana Collective are fabulous live.