Reviews
Artists: Urusen
Venue: Purbeck Folk Festival
When: 3rd-5th September
Website:
www.myspace.com/urusen
Urusen are quickly becoming festival favourites with appearances already this year at events such as Glastonbury, Trowbridge Village Pump, Larmer Tree, Secret Garden, Trees, Dartmouth and Fieldview amongst others. I understand today's appearance at Purbeck was as a direct result of the organisers being bombarded with requests from festival goers who had witnessed their appearances at both Trowbridge and Larmer Tree.
The Purbeck Folk festival is quite a new one on the scene, but got great plaudits after the inaugural festival last year.. This year a new venue hosted the event, full of rustic charm from and set in, the midst of the Dorset countryside. Although this was termed a Folk Festival, by nature, Urusen are not strictly a "Folk" act in the timeless sense of the word.
They perform their well written and perfectly arranged contemporary self penned songs that draw their influence from many facets of roots and popular music.
In melding these differing styles together they produce their own unique brand, laced with strong harmonies, skillful playing and terrific interpretations generating an interest which takes them far beyond that, which some aspire.
One of the features of their sound is the cello of Nick Ullmann whose subtle and dynamic playing, enriches the bands sound giving it a real depth. I liken the Cello's impact on the songs to the emotions that Cellist Claire Deniz brought to the early Strawbs album "Dragonfly".
Jay Darwish switches seamlessly and expertly between double and electric bass and with Kieran Houston, on drums, the pair form the drum /bass combo. Kieran's playing style is subtle, expressive.You feel that he puts every ounce of his own personal enjoyment and interpretation of the songs into his performance.
The band is fronted by cousins Ben Please and Peter Beatty, sharing vocals, guitars and the harmonies which are augmented by Kieran from behind the drum kit.
With this band the range of instruments moves far beyond, guitar drums and bass, moving through charango and harmonium as the set progresses.
Today they included numbers from their mid album 4 track CD, including "Bury me" and "From This Country ". From their earlier CD "One Day In June" tracks such as Nosediving appeared and also moving forward new and yet to be recorded tracks such as "Wanted", .
That is by no means the complete set list there were many more, but each was greeted with a warmth by the enchanted audience.
One thing is for sure their music draws people in, like iron filings to a magnet their intoxicating sound interests all and the audience swelled as their set moved on. The heartfelt plea for an encore showed just what impact they had made.
Incidentally , "One day in June", mixed at Gabriel's Real World Studios, was originally just a specially packaged limited edition which has now sold out. However such has been the demand it is now available again with different packaging. Those early editions will surely in time, become a collectors item as well as a treasure for it's content. Get your hands on a copy, it will be very hard not to keep playing it.
A great live band too.
Nigel Bennett