Dick Farrelly And Mat Walklate
Album: Keep It Clean
Label: Seydel
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.dfarrelly.com www.matwalklate.co.uk

If you like your blues stripped back and a little on the folky side, then we've definitely unearthed a real gem for you. "Keep It Clean", the debut album from Dick Farrelly & Mat Walklate, is one of those albums that came out of a chance meeting, where two kindred musicians, a guitarist and a harmonica player ended up playing together and just clicked.

What followed was an almost ungentle manly rush for the studio to get some tracks down. What followed was a nine and a half hour blitz that saw ten song album recorded and in the can, that pretty much includes the time it took to agree on what traditional tracks they were going to use and to complete three half finished songs that had gone along.

"Keep It Clean" has got that barroom sound to it, Farrelly & Waltlake have both got a relaxed style and it's entirely possible that if they took the songs back in the studio today and did the same thing, it would be a different sounding album, probably as good, but with different emphasis on the words and the music, because you do get the feel that a lot of the album was improvised pretty much in front of the mic.

Walklate does carry a real American twang into his voice that also emphasises the sense of Southern, hobo, folk blues, at times almost with a rockabilly edge, this definitely the music of bars and honkytonks and because it is mainly versions of traditional songs you can often find yourself weighing them up against other versions of the songs that you know and the scales tip heavily in the duos favour. In amongst listening to the likes of "Black cat Bone" and "Good As I Been To You" I was suddenly struck by the revelation as to what these guys could do with "Big Rock candy Mountain", maybe next time.

The musicianship on this album is superb, to make something sound this effortless takes a real load of understanding between artist and instrument and artists and each other. That may be why the track that stands out best, for me is one that the duo penned between them "24 Hours". The song renders the details of the first day in the life of relationship breakdown in real heartfelt fashion.

Dick Farrelly & Mat Walklate have delivered an album which shows that when everything clicks and it all comes together you get albums that really know how to sizzle without having to mortgage the house. "Keep It Clean" is an album that'll sound great for years to come.

Neil King