Big World Blue
Album: Big World Blue (EP)
Label: Grey Fox
Tracks: 6
Website: http://www.bigworldblue.com/

Running out of space on your CD shelf? Hard drive getting full of MP3s? Cloud getting overloaded with all of your uploaded downloads and downloaded uploads? I have the perfect solution. Simply buy Big World Blues EP, and you'll never want to listen to anything else. The charity shops will benefit from the wheelbarrow loads of your old CDs that you no longer need. It's a win win situation.

Big World Blue are mainly a duo consisting of Martyn Barker and Jo Beth Young. All six songs on the EP were written by them, with Jo Beth having written all of the lyrics.

Martyn is primarily a drummer and a song writer and has worked with a wide variety of different genres and musicians including Marriane Faithfull and Ropert Plant. On the EP he is credited with playing hangdrum, drums, guitars, keyboards, stringed instruments, psaltery, piano, percussion, bass and backing vocals.

Jo Beth excels in a variety of different media, including writing, poetry, photography and painting. On the EP she is credited with playing dulcimer, glokenspiel, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and vocals.

They were also joined by several other musicians who added many additional instruments such as cello, violin, viola, and an African instrument called a riti (used by the Fula tribe. It consists of a bowl covered in skin, with a neck with a single string made of horsehair, and it's played with a bow also made from horsehair).

Combined, the overall affect is absolutely mesmerising. Jo Beth has a voice that I can only decribe as like a Tolkein elf. It is rich in harmonics, ethereal, and just plain gorgeous. The instruments blend together with the vocals to give a wall of sound that is energising one instant and then soporific like a lullaby the next.

There are deep mystical undercurrents in Jo Beth's lyrics: "Morning" is an invocation to the ancient Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu, and "Doves", I think, is inspired by a poem by a 13th Century Persian poet called Rumi, who wrote that if we all got rid of our petty jealousies we would rise up, like Doves.

Not only could I listen to this record over and over again, I have, and will continue doing so. If it was vinyl I'd have probably worn it out by now. A real shame that this is only an EP. Can't wait for them to release a full blown album.

Pete Bradley