Naomi Randall with Tom Gaskell
Album: Naomi Randall with Tom Gaskell
Label: Aaahh! Real
Tracks: 9
Website: http://www.naomirandall.bandcamp.com

This is a decidedly special disc, beautifully stylishly packaged and presented with significantly attractive artwork and design, and a release which very clearly takes its musical and artistic cues from the finest of approved credentials (probably best described as mid- to late-sixties psych-folk zeitgeist). A magical, floaty ever-so-slightly-exotic Pentangle-cum-SunAlsoRises demeanour delicately presides over the duo's opening seven-minute setting of the ballad La Pernette, glancing guitar with softly embellished textures from harp, psaltery, mellotron, piano, glockenspiel and sitar and a solid if wandering bass line.

If I've a small criticism, it's that Naomi's voice (at any rate as recorded on this track) lacks the tiniest edge of extra presence it needs to thoroughly command the text. Happily, she's placed more in focus on Nottamun Town, which takes a Davy Graham-like guitar figure as a springboard for its English-country vibe, with dobro giving way to a wyrd, almost Pink-Floyd-ambient electric coda. By some stretch the least layered of the disc's settings, Sleepy Laddie Door, finds the duo harmonising ISB-style above Naomi's deft, idiomatically supportive guitar - simple and intensely effective, and totally lovely, very probably the standout track in spite of the hot-house delights of the remainder of the CD.

The spirit of the ISB then audibly carries over into the rippling twin-guitar work on the opening section of Naomi's episodic (if mildly cryptic) composition The Granta, the patchwork measure of which I'm still pondering. On this evidence I'm looking forward to hearing more of Naomi's writing, for the only other compositions she contributes here are two instrumentals (the busy, scuttling interlude Fox's Sunday Best and the lengthier St. John's Raga) that airily complement the disc's otherwise traditionally-based menu. On the latter, Tom demonstrates his prowess on the sitar, although I get the definite feel that the track could've benefitted from a more extended development. The generous handful of songs which Naomi has adapted from purely traditional sources all work really well, and her imaginative approach and arranging skills invariably pay handsome dividends.

Her dramatic treatment of Lord Gregory comes complete with eldritch whispery vocal, while Bonnie Bunch Of Roses receives an eerie multiple-drone-soaked backing and the aforementioned La Pernette (although derived from Malicorne's Gabriel Yacoub rather than strictly from tradition) drifts almost too effortlessly through its eldritch landscape. My only carp is that at just 35 minutes the album's much too short - I'm sure that Naomi and Tom have so much more to say.

David Kidman