Moulettes
EP: Uca's Dance
Label: Balling The Jack
Tracks: 6
Website: http://www.moulettes.co.uk

As anyone who has read my review of this year's Musicport festival will be aware I was very impressed by the Moulette's live performance and on returning from Whitby went on to be equally delighted by the band's 'The Bear's Revenge' album - the opportunity to review their EP was, therefore, too good to resist.

Unsuprisingly the EP opens with a relatively 'straight' version of Uca's Dance itself which is certainly a highlight of the aforementioned album from which it has been extracted. The band's songwriter and main vocalist Hannah Miller apparently conceived the song when she was leading a music workshop in Bosnia and was joined by the eponymous Romanian Fire Dancer. Her imagination created a world where Uca and a dancing bear were trapped in a cruel circus but managed to escape in a hot air baloon - so not your typical folk song then but wonderful all the same! Despite the complexity of the instrumentation Hannah's voice sails above everything ensuiring the story is not lost in the malestrom of beautiful sound.

Of the three variously titled remixes of the song on the CD the only one that really works for me is the 9 Hour Champion Fever Mix where the added synths & loops create a viable alternative that stands up on its own merits - the other two are either too glitchy or downbeat for my ears, though the final Wax 22 Mix does have the benefit of having a lovely cello line.

The remaining tracks are 'The Song You Sing' (which includes a gloriously frenetic Eastern European style tune at the end) and a live version of 'Devil of Mine' (the studio version of which appeared on the first Moulettes album) which are both as inventive as one would expect and well worth a listen.

If you want to dip your toe into the world of the Moulettes then this would undoubtedly be a good place to start, and if you are a completeist you will buy it anyway, but if you have to choose then purchasing 'The Bear's Revenge' would be the best use of your money.

Joe Grint