NE3Folk
Album: Show Us Your Reds
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.ne3folk.co.uk

"Show Us Your Reds", no, not a witch hunt seeking the current Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn but rather a phrase penned when accordionist Victoria Laurenson, running out of air, opened her arms wide and flashed her red bellows.

NE3 Folk are the aforementioned Victoria, fiddler Catherine Geldard and guitarist Chris Meredith, an extremely talented set of musicians whose work has been compared to the works of early Lau. Listening to "Show Us Your Reds" it makes me want to re-evaluate my thoughts on Lau and see what I missed.

A set of Strathspeys opens the album, they build in pace to end in a reel ("Flying Home To Shelley") it's so foot tappingly good they could drag me up on a dance floor despite being renowned for having two left feet.

And so it continues, a mixture of self-penned, traditional and modern tunes that flow like mountain streams, sometimes trickling, sometimes bubbling and sometimes raging but always with that beauty which stops you in your tracks and demands attention.

Highlights for me are the title track which begins with a slow Shetland air ("Da Day Dawn") on just the fiddle before the others join in to end with a raucous reel ("Sleep Soond ida Morning"). Powerful stuff.

No less powerful is "Snow Blind", a tribute to Alistair Anderson, two reels and a highland pipe tune that showcase Catherine's flying fiddle underpinned by Chris's solid guitar work and a gorgeous accordion bass sound that adds a welcome sense of drama courtesy of Victoria. What also comes over is the tightness of the band through their interpretations and arrangements.

It's followed by "MK's Lullaby" self-written by Meredith, it's simple and it does exactly what is promises, you just feel your shoulders relax, tension flows away, you become becalmed, it soothes, a lovely tune.

And finally the album closes with "Monstrosity" which reminds of the innovative Danish Band Instinkt, almost proggie, not quite classical, it's a complex and intricate composition written by Geldard.

NE3 Folk, Newcastle based, origins from the Shetlands, it's enough to want to make you move North. Now

Ian Cripps