Ashley Hutchings
Album: The Riot Of Spring
Label: Talking Elephant
Tracks: 17
Website: http://www.talkingelephant.co.uk

"… and other historical dramas, large and small" - is how this new thematic compilation is subtitled. Its generous 70-minute length betokens a wealth of key performances taken from the massive Hutchings/Albion Band recorded archive, all but one of the tracks having been culled straight from existing (and, I believe, still currently available) album releases. Albion aficionados will doubtless want this disc just for the excellent title number, a brand new Hutchings/Topping/Angell composition of a typically erudite nature that cleverly draws a parallel between the iconoclastic, earth-shattering impact - and far-reaching, world-changing effect - of the première of Stravinsky's iconic ballet The Rite Of Spring in 1913 and that of the so-called War To End All Wars, barely a year away (hindsight being a wonderful thing, of course). Inspired by last year's BBCTV docu-drama Riot At The Rite, the song musically references the landmark ballet score, by means of an meaningfully episodic structure that (like the Stravinsky) intersperses passages of queasy calm with stabbing ostinati and cruel rhythms - and yet does so believably and without any hint of over-literal, crude pastiche posturing. The intention may or may not be to shock - the jury's out even on the subject of the original ballet itself, and much water has passed under the cultural bridges of the world over the past century, of course - but the impact of this masterly, thought-provoking new opus cannot be denied, more especially when the tale and its attendant thesis are as persuasively voiced as here.

In the wake of which, it would be all too easy for a listener to feel a sense of anti-climax when confronted thereafter with a procession of album tracks, which on the face of it might well seem to be almost randomly chosen but when more closely scrutinised reveal an intelligent plan on the part of the compilers (Hutchings himself and Paul Hopkinson). It's not clear whether the individual tracks comprising this "supporting cast" have actually been remastered, but certainly a splendid sense of unity is gained from listening to the sequence as presented here, not just from the presence of The Guv'nor himself in whatever guise (songwriter, arranger, producer, performer, band leader) - while I'd swear that the man's own bass playing resounds ever more vitally throughout the sequence! Actually, it's all too easy to forget (tho' temporarily, I hasten to add) just how exhaustive the Hutchings archive is, and for that matter just how many truly classic performances are enshrined therein. Naturally, this new compilation provides a fine opportunity for showcasing the intense strength of the various bands and collectives that the good Mr. Hutchings has convened during his career, serving also as a salutary reminder of the many talents he has nurtured.

Following the disc's inescapably brilliant title track, and albeit after an ostensibly slightly out-of-place Battle Of The Somme (from the original Lark Rise release), there's arguably more beauty than radical thought to be found in the first half of this collection, which takes in three cuts from 2008's Lark Rise Revisited production, along with Ivory Tower (from the Demi Paradise lineup that included While & Matthews) and Gillie Nicholls' account of I'm Going Away, Love (from the 1999 Before Us Stands Yesterday set). Then, central to the collection, there's a brace of tracks from the 2003 Cecil Sharp Centenary Collective project As I Cycled Out On A May Morning, kicked off by the rollicking Appalachian-flavoured Matty Groves (with Roger Wilson taking the vocal lead) and succeeded by the cracking live version of Seven Strong Spires from 2002 and the morbidly jaunty Ridgeriders tale Michael Morey's Hump, after which the clouds then darken and a triptych of ominous, percipient commentaries (The Party's Over, Ill Omens and Two Thousand Years Is A Very Long Time) make a notably telling impact in their pole position as the disc's closing salvo.

Great care has clearly been taken with the assemblage of the various items on this disc, and it deserves a wide appreciation, emphatically not to be written off as just another compilation. Presentation-wise, too, I'm pleased to find that Talking Elephant have on this occasion provided personnel credits and release dates for the individual tracks, emphasising the consistency not only of Hutchings' songwriting but also his intuitive, and impeccable, choice of fellow-travellers over the two-decades-plus covered by the disc.

David Kidman