Pennyless
Album: Tales From The Tulgey Wood
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.pennyless-music.co.uk

Lincolnshire-based Pennyless was originally a duo comprising Les Woods and Penny Stevens; they released a CD In Spring And In Blue close on two years back, with multi-instrumentalist Graham Dale guesting. For the followup, it would appear that Graham has joined Les and Penny on a permanent basis, and the resulting, often super-eclectic palette is both full and adventurous, with flute, whistle, soprano sax, melodica, zither and assorted percussion augmenting Les's acoustic and electric guitars and bass and Penny's violin and bowed psaltery; while all three take turns with vocals, it's Penny's contributions that tend to stand out.

The music-making seems to have taken a giant stride forward since the earlier album, and there are some intriguing sounds to be heard here, with intelligent use of resources and influences absorbing anything from prog to Mike Oldfield, ISB and world. The formerly sometimes tame mix of traditional covers and self-penned songs is now much more confident too, while the occasionally mildly ramshackle (albeit very enthusiastic) demeanour of the band's debut is now being unashamedly turned to best advantage. The disc's diversity feels less like a contrivance and more like a genuine sharing-out of talents, although the most attractive tracks for me are Penny's own compositions, which range from the psych-folk of Fanciful Girl to the retro-wyrd Winter Is Gone (an arrangement of an early 13th century lyric) and the jazz-tinged Tell It To The Bees. Also very appealing are the enchanting Will O' The Wisp (jointly penned with Les) and the more elusive The Caretaker (written by Les).

Graham takes responsibility for the instrumental selections: a pair of hornpipes, a respectable runthrough of the nowadays-ubiquitous Catharsis (paired with his own composition Repression) and a Banoffi-esque Romanian dance; and the tracklist is completed by two contrasted covers: a genial treatment of the Guthrie/Bragg triumph Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key and a slightly gruff rendition of Donovan's curious setting of Jabberwocky.

Yes, now that Pennyless appear to have found their musical feet I can sense an even more interesting forth album coming on, which will be well worth waiting for.

David Kidman