Duncan Wood & Guests
Album: Swarbtricks
Label: Beechwood
Tracks: 17
Website: http://www.swarbtricks.org

"Swarbtricks" or to give it its full, explanatory title, "Swarbtricks A Collection Of New Melodies Purposely Composed For The Violin & Mandolin By David Swarbrick Arranged & Performed By Duncan Wood & Guests" that does exactly what it says on the sleeve. A musical book that can be described by its cover, if you will.

Fatea awarded Dave 'Swarbs' Swarbrick our Lifetime Achievement Award this year and whilst he's not the principle musician on the release this album shows why he's one of the most influential fiddle players in English folk music in the last fifty odd years. For a start you get to hear so much of the traditional influences that ended up driving the likes of Fairport.

Across the 17 tracks that make up the album, Swarbs, via the playing of Duncan Wood & Guests dips into so many different folk idioms, jigs and reels interplay with horn pipes and marches. There's even a few lighter touches that had me thinking of the great Freddie Phillips and if they decide that Trumpton, Camberwick Green & Chigley needs a big screen releases like Fireman Sam, then Swarbs seems like the ideal candidate for the soundtrack.

Hands up, I sometimes don't make it all the way through an instrumental album in the one sitting and looking at the sleeve detailing seventeen sets and a little over thirty tunes, I must say it did look a little daunting, but it really is so rich and varied you'll be finding yourself, unexpectedly, popping out the other side before you realise it, expecting more. Even if it is a little too much for a single serving, there is so much here that you can just dip into as the mood takes you.

Duncan Wood & Guests more than does the songs justice. The musicianship is quite superb, but when you're building on such solid foundations, it's easy to put together the exemplary.

Neil King