The Bara Bara Band
Album: Not The Last Act
Label: Singaround
Tracks: 4
Website: http://www.thebarabaraband.com

The London-based Bara Bara Band describe themselves as "an alt-folk quartet drawing promiscuously on old-time Americana, country and 60s psych as well as soaking up influences of traditional English folk music"; whoa there! But to my mind that's not really the image their music conjures up - certainly the lead track of this EP, Come Ye Forth, sounds more like a feisty yet playful child conceived in a cosmic circus caravan, maybe a fiercely independent cross between the Incredible String Band, the Banshees and the B52s; check out that cheesy Woolworths organ, which also crops up on the stomping title cut. What Do You Believe In?, with its gorgeous yearning vocals and twitchy fiddle motifs, is altogether gentler in expression and tone, but retains a bewitchingly sinister tone and is steeped in fairy lore and twinkling glockenspielery.

The EP closer, Medusa, presents the mythical gorgoness in the unusual and ingenious context of a snake-hips line-dancing hoedown with pulsating cajun fiddles and rousing harmonica. All four songs are composed by band member Ruth Jacob, who I understand was formerly one half of legendary female folk duo The Lorcas. Ruth also provides the gorgeous lead vocals throughout; the lineup's completed by Rupert Browne (bass), Boris Ming (fiddle, keyboards) and Will Dobson (drums, cymbals, glockenspiel), all of whose input cannot be underestimated.notwithstanding Ruth's charismatic presence.

The Bara Bara Band provides something refreshingly different, not merely quirky-for-the-sake-of-it, and the brevity of this EP leaves me wanting much more (and we're told that this is only the band's second release).

David Kidman