Kate In The Kettle
Album: Swimmings Of The Head
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.kateyoungmusic.com/

Kate being Kate Young, whose talents were creatively combined with those of fellow (female) folk fiddle-singers Eliza Carthy, Bella Hardy and Lucy Farrell and Kate Young on last year's cd (Laylam) which delighted and puzzled listeners in almost equal measure with its determinedly eclectic choice of material, notwithstanding its keen sense of enterprise in arrangement. Kate's also been touring Europe and Australia with world-music ensemble Ethno In Transit, but her latest musical collaboration, Kate In The Kettle, finds her performing in tandem with Scandinavian musician Marit Fält, a key exponent of the låt-mandola (Swedish bass mandola) who also performs in the band Vamm (with Catriona MacDonald and Patsy Reid) and the duo Marit & Rona (with Rona Wilkie), whom Kate met while studying together on the Newcastle University Folk Music degree.

Earlier this year, In May, Kate released a single, Green And Gold, which crops up again here; it's one of a number of Kate's own compositions which are proudly unleashed on the album. Around half of these are songs, on which Kate's hauntingly incisive voice takes centre stage amidst a fairly exotic backdrop of fiddle, låt-mandola and table or cajon with occasional extra percussion and/or bass clarinet and bass guitar from guests Daniel Moser and Marti Tärn respectively. The songs, while drawing upon folk music traditions (and the album's title references a quote from 17th century British herbalist Nicholas Culpeper), are driven by Kate's passion to cultivate public awareness connected to many environmental issues, but their method of communication is natural and unforced and unpreachy. Musically, the album draws its inspiration from different world folk music traditions, weaving elements of these into an exciting and often dizzying tapestry of sounds and rhythms, and several of the disc's eight tracks mix and meld specific pieces both instrumental and vocal. Most successful, perhaps, are those which exhibit the most telling contrast between the various elements, such as the stunning Lullaby For An Infant Chief (which follows Kate's setting of Scott's text with the traditional Scandinavian Slängspolska) and Paper Rose (which juxtaposes a Satie Gnossienne and a duo arrangement of the title piece). At times, the bewildering juxtapositions can come across a touch frenzied, but on the opening track, a conflagration of Nora Hopper's poem Fairy Fiddler and the traditional Säb Jon's Polska, the interpolation of Kate's vocalising (in Swedish, I think) is seriously arresting (even if you know what's coming after the first play). As is the whole disc, in fact; to call it attention-grabbing is an understatement.

I feel sure Kate and Marit will have conquered every single venue on their recent tour - for which, sadly, this disc arrived a touch too late to herald - but I feel equally sure that this particular duo lineup has plenty more mileage, in that the kettle in which Kate resides is capable of many more similarly heady brews.

David Kidman