Italy has a problem with its folk music. I’m not talking about singer-songwriters with the acoustic guitar that in the sixties/seventies spread like wildfire giving life to a famous musical season, but rather I’m alluding to the national musical heritage that, settling in the decades before our colonization by the American sounds and imagination, constituted the true figure of our musical and popular identity. 
Without going deep in the matter (this is not the subject of the article), it would be sufficient to recall here how in Italy the term “folkloristic” is generally used with a negative connotation, at least on a mainstream level, so to speak. Popular tradition is often considered a legacy of times gone by, which is even looked at with embarrassment and shame… at least until it becomes useful for advertising and attracting tourists, as happens for example with events such as “La notte della Taranta”. And so, despite the fact that there are so many people and associations in the territory who work daily to keep the popular soul of this nation alive, we cannot but note how it is an ungrateful and hypocrite country, since it has built much of the charm that is attributed to it in the world on tradition and history. 

As we were saying, this speech would be too long and the subject of our article is not Italian folk, but British folk. This premise therefore served to explain how difficult it is for us as Italian people to understand the importance of folk music in those places. English folk music is not only a musical movement, but also and above all a cultural movement, deeply rooted in British society, to the point that the BBC Folk Awards, for example, represent a big media event, that is much awaited in the British cultural palimpsest. An institutional and social attention that, when compared to our own events (previously we mentioned “The Night of the Taranta”), marks the difference that exists between the two populations in their relationship with their own popular soul. 

But the real characteristic that allows us to truly grasp the relationship between the British people and their own popular music is the refusal of such music to be only a static celebration of a tradition. British folk music is a music that is anything but dead or resting on its own past. Unlike rock music that for some decades now has begun to look back, but with a nostalgic and revivalist perspective, folk music feeds on a look to its roots, which, however, is declined according to a dynamic vision, carrying out an almost scientific research of the necessary foundations for the understanding of the present, thus allowing the projection towards the future. It is therefore not a question of nostalgia, but of memory.

In the Brexit era, then, the temptation to associate popular music with populist/sovranist tendencies can peep out. In the context of a broad and multifaceted movement there will obviously also be a nostalgic component that tends to identify folk music as a means of defending one’s own culture and therefore as a symbol around which one can cling to preserve it unchanged. This is certainly a legitimate vision, but in any case a limited one. Folk music in my opinion is never the music of ONE people, but of ALL the people because it has universal characteristics. In fact, folk songs speak of happiness and sadness, of blossomed or broken loves, of colossal drinking, of war and peace, of justice and injustice, of misery and the need for legal or illegal expedients to survive, of the fight against the power and even of men and women and children forced to embark (maybe as clandestines) on ships towards the hope of a new life. In short, arguments without place and without time. From the musical point of view, if there is music that does not have to fear losing its identity in the encounter with other music, it is precisely folk music, thanks to its roots deeply rooted in the territory. As demonstrated by the very moment that represented the turning point in British folk music: the folk revival in the 60s. It was precisely in those years that a new generation of musicians gave a shake to the old purist schemes, injecting into folk music styles of rock, jazz or oriental music, infecting the movement with the demands of the nascent youth culture. Since then popular music has come out of the fence of folk clubs and village festivals and has ended up throwing itself into society, confronting itself with the present and with “the other” (from both a geographical and musical point of view). From that moment on it started to be a pulsating matter again, managing at the same time not to give up even a bit of its own identity.

That was only the beginning of a phenomenon that we can define as contemporary Folk, which still today, or rather perhaps particularly just today, lives a moment of extreme vitality.

Mind you, things are not so simple and we should not confuse superficial and commercial operations with more serious contaminations. In fact, it is not enough to take a traditional song, plug the electric guitar, beat on the drums or put some electronics to make folk music current. The fusion between ancient and modern requires study, knowledge of the subject and, above all, respect for the musical and cultural heritage. In today’s panorama, however, we find a bunch of musicians who from different angles live the present, daring – with the right balance – between innovation and respect for the past, trying to bring tradition into the future. We would therefore like to talk about some of them. Obviously the choice will be partial and incomplete… This article should therefore be understood above all as a stimulus for those who want to discover this world.

Let’s start with the emerald isle and The Gloaming, the group that at the moment best represents Irish folk and in particular its contemporary dimension. The group has reached a great consensus at home with both the audience and the critics and seems to represent for the current folk music a bit what Planxty (and the group of musicians and groups like the Moving hearts that have revolved around them) represented for the folk revival. The Gloaming is above all a cultural operation because it seems to want to show how popular culture has its own raison d’être even outside the usual fields. The five musicians do not want to upset tradition, but rather to renew it and go to the heart of popular music, of the beauty and timeless poetics that it preserves, bringing it to the attention not only of folk music lovers, but also of an audience as accustomed to cultured music as that of the theatres. In short, the message is clear: traditional music encapsulates much more than classic postcard stereotypes; it is music that appears to be “low” but deserves to be spread to the “high” world as well. The exuberance of the typical jigs is therefore apparently “cooled down” in a performance that brings back to chamber music, but at the same time manages to fully express its origins without betraying them, capturing the listener and transporting him or her into an ancestral and timeless atmosphere. We said “apparently cold”, because if on paper the performance may appear too composed and studied, in reality, on closer inspection, it is a performance that manages to fully convey the human warmth typical of Irish music. This can be heard, for example, in last year’s amazing live record, which exudes energy from all pores. Your humble reporter witnessed one of the concerts on the tour and I can assure you that I have seen so many elegant and polite spectators beating their feet during the dragging instrumental crescendo… Alongside the traditional pieces there are compositions written by the ensemble components which often set to music Gaelic writings and poems by Irish writers, showing how The Gloaming project is more than just a slightly snobbish and salacious reinterpretation of Irish music; it is rather an act of love for their own land and a true work of spreading its culture.

The group is formed by Martin Hayes’ violin, the group’s concert master accompanied by the evocative sounds of Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh’s hardanger of love (a sort of 10-string violin) (http://www.hardangerdamore.com/index.php/Hardanger_d%27Amore). They weave the melodies, overlapping or chasing each other, supported by the guitarist Cahill who plays an obscure but important role, dealing with both the accompaniment and the rhythmic part. Then there is the sublime voice of Iarla Ó Lionáird, capable of combining the purest technique of traditional Sean Nos singing with Middle Eastern influences (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is a reference). And finally there is the secret weapon, the idea that disrupts tradition: the inclusion of the alien element made up of Thomas Bartlett, an American pop musician and producer, but above all extraneous to the folk circuit. Bartlett’s different musical culture and sensitivity is expressed through the use of the piano, an instrument absent from Irish tradition, contributing decisively to create the identity of The Gloaming sound.

In addition to the aforementioned “Live at NCH” of 2018, the band has published three works in which they alternate pieces of their own composition with reinterpretations of traditional songs and instruments. 
We suggest to start with one of the records in the studio to get in touch with the sound and the concept of popular music that characterizes the group (the quality of the three works is always very high so we think it’s useless to mention one title rather than another) and then move on to the live record that adds to the mix the passionate intensity typical of the ensemble’s performances.

Now cross the sea to go to Great Britain and precisely to Scotland where we find Lau. This trio formed in 2006 by Kris Drever (vocals and guitar), Aidan O’rourke (violin) and Martin Green (accordion and electronics) represents for the main island the spearhead of the contemporary folk scene as The Gloaming are for the green neighhbour. Both the music and the approach to the subject matter of the three Scots are, however, decidedly different from their overseas “cousins”. The strength of the trio is above all that of being (forgive me profanity) “one and triune”, that is made up of three artists of great personality and creativity, decidedly different from each other, but capable of synthesizing their individuality in a unique and innovative overall vision.

Kris Drever with his voice of crystalline beauty and his guitar represents the soul that’s closer to songwriting tradition and song, while O’Rourke with his violin, the traditional instrument par excellence, appears a bit like the conductor and the bridge between tradition and chamber and jazz sound. Finally, Martin Green is the wild card, the one who spreads the cards on the table, the explorer who seamlessly goes from the ancient (accordion) to the modern (electronics).

Often, when using such different ingredients, there is the risk of obtaining a recipe that is too tasty; well,the three musicians manage to mix the different elements with balance and taste, until they obtain a formula capable of going beyond the reassuring musical and cultural boundaries in which folk music was often confined (or confined itself).

In fact, they do not seem to care about writing “folk music”, but on the contrary, they make use of their own cultural and musical training, that is folk to the bone, to play simply the music they want and which, beyond the final result, carries within itself the DNA of tradition like a mark.

Listen for example to the song “The bell that never rang”.

This is a long composition that also makes use of a string quartet, composed on commission and that’s contained in the same titled album. The first part of the piece it’s lead by the strings although disturbed by a treated guitar in the background.An unsettling beginning with sounds close to chamber music and in the most dissonant moments to contemporary music. The subtle melody, however, evokes ancient sensations and ends up dissolving in the second part in a lyrical and melancholic ballad, enriched by accordion and violin, but above all by Drever’s poignant voice, which – reinforced by the hypnotic and evocative repetition of the choir – leads us to the finale where the string quartet returns as protagonist. Some orthodox traditionalists might turn their noses up, but I think the only way not to see the folk soul in this music is to hear it without listening to it. In order to dispel any doubts of wanting to be innovators at all costs, the trio follows this monumental piece, with a much more classical ballad. And “Ghosts” is a song of breathtaking beauty: Green and O’rourke put themselves at Drever’s service who surpasses himself and lay down a memorable melody, creating a song capable of silencing any detractor.

Always in perpetual motion (as they say: “We’re learning all the time”) Lau released this year their fourth album “Midnight And Closedown” with which they once again are confirmed as subtle and unconventional innovators, this time pushing the pedal on a more immediate music with a greater integration of electronic elements. Try listening to “Toy Tigers” to understand how deep the interpenetration between popular and “pop”ular souls is. The very effective collaboration with one of the best rock producers around, John Parish, also confirms the trio’s openness to the world. An approach that, alas, does not apply to many of their fellow citizens who have chosen with Brexit, “Isolation. Fear. Giddiness. Cutting ties with allies, friends and partners”, using O’rourke’s own words in the presentation of the album. 

These are the main themes of the album, inevitably influenced by the story that sees Great Britain struggling with Brexit (which reminds us once again how the folk movement is anything but perched on conservative and populist positions).

Finally, when talking about Lau, it is worth mentioning the works of the three soloists. Kris Drever‘s works such as “Black Water” and “If Wishes were horses” are excellent folk songwriting works that highlight mature writing and excellent skills as interpreters of traditional songs or other authors. Aidan O’rourke‘s records show the search for the perfect balance between chamber music and traditional; particularly successful and interesting are the two recent double records “365” Vol. 1 and 2”, where the author also adds a touch of European jazz, thanks to Kit Downes’ piano. Then there is the explorer Martin Green who first gives us an unclassifiable mix of rock, funk, folk, jazz, avant, sampling with “First Sighting” the ebarks on a journey on the theme of death in popular music with  the gloomy, but very deep “Crow’s Bones” and finally gives us one of the most interesting works of recent years, “Flit”, on which we must dwell. It is a complex artistic project that focuses on the theme of emigration (here we go again….) and includes cinematographic elements, stop-motion animation, video-art and light show. From the musical point of view, the work develops as a complex work where singing and spoken word, electronics and folk intertwine. Green makes use of important musicians such as Adrian Utley and Dominic Aitchison and folk and non-folk voices such as Becky Unthank and Adrian Moffat and songwriters such as Karine Polwart and Anais Mitchell who transform his “stories of emigration” into songs, creating a work that leaves a deep mark on anyone who listens to it.

We talked about high and low culture, and in this regard we owe at least a brief mention to Fred Thomas and his “The Beguilers”. An eclectic and restless musician who wanders between one style and another in a path of perennial research and who in this project sets to music the compositions of some of the most important British poets such as Shakespeare, Blake and Emily Bronte. The result is fascinating and elegant compositions based on multiple influences that he himself points out in “English folk, Joao Gilberto, Minimalism, the Aka Pigmies, The Beatles, and the English Madrigal School”. 

Let’s return to Scotland where we find a key artist and animator of the folk scene of the 2000s, Alasdair Roberts. The goodfellow Alasdair is the ubiquitous man of British folk, an enthusiastic man ready to launch himself into any interesting project and give his contribution to anyone who asks him. Roberts is a team player, always ready to gather around him friends and collaborators. In short, the kind of guy that we wouldn’t be surprised to find singing, beer in hand, even in the most remote Scottish pub.

Musically speaking, Roberts is a free spirit, a singer-songwriter capable of exploring all the facets of traditional folk music and revitalising them thanks to his attitude towards collaboration, which has led him to deal with artists who are always different and heterogeneous, ranging from Richard Youngs (speaking of irregulars…) to Breton folk ensembles.

His discography is wide and varied, but here we would like to focus on “What News” published in 2018 together with Amber Skuse and David McGuinness; a true milestone in contemporary folk music that perfectly embodies the spirit we are trying to describe in this article.

The album, made exclusively of a repertoire of traditional songs, is astonishing for the way the songs are interpreted. The album is based on four pillars: voice, fortepiano, electronics and silence. Roberts’ voice represents the most traditional element. The fortepiano, played by McGuinness, is a musical instrument that represents the nineteenth-century ancestor of the piano (it is made entirely of wood) and that with its loud sounds and different dynamics gives a new sound to the music. This element of antiquity is flanked, in a fascinating contrast, by the modern element represented by Amber Skuse’s electronic manipulations, which carries out a work as discreet as it is effective in giving music a contemporary face. The last pillar is represented by the relationship with silence. The trio, except for one piece, does not use rhythmic instruments, but on the contrary lets the music breathe, expanding the space between the notes which in this way become thicker, thanks also to Skuse’s subtle work: pieces such as “The Fair Flower Of Northumberland”, “Young Johnstone” and “Clerk Colven” are perfect examples.

An educated singer, visual artist, promoter of initiatives, educator, scholar and archivist of ancient music and, last but not least, an instructor of survival techniques: this is what Sam Lee‘s biography says, and to stay on the subject we could define the Renaissance man of contemporary folk music. He is in fact an artist whose music is only one aspect of a wider cultural project: that of collecting (he spent a lot of time finding and collecting music in local communities, in particular among ROMs and nomads in Ireland and was a pupil of the esteemed Scottish musician Stanley Robertson), preserving (he is responsible and curator of the archive of the English Folk Dance and Song Society), renewing (through his music) and sharing (he is the founder and curator of the Nest collective, a network dedicated to the dissemination of “folk, world and traditional music”) traditional music.

In my opinion, this information is essential in understanding Lee’s music (as well as the Jewish origins of the musician). It is a process that combines the humanistic and scientific approach: the traditional repertoire is a seed grafted into a breeding ground of knowledge, competence, method, human experience, genealogy, sharing and passion, from which a renewed, modern and cosmopolitan music comes to life.

Lee’s records are all noteworthy and different from each other, to underline the tireless spirit of scholar and explorer. The debut album “Ground Of Its Own” shows an essential sound based on traditional instrumentation (violin, dulcimer), exotic (jew’s harp, shruti box, a sort of harmonium) and modern (hang drum, electric piano, trumpet) and on his warm voice, rich in vibrato and faithful to Lee’s traditional technique. But you can define anything but ancient  songs like “The Ballad of George Collins” where the jew’s harp draws a rhythm closer to modern dance music than to folk or in the minimalism of “The Tan Yard Slide” built on shruti box, field recordings and Lee’s hypnotic interpretation lying on a light carpet of strings.

In “The Fade in Time”, Lee enriches and thickens the sound. Jewish and Balkan influences emerge more and British music ends up rising and surpassing physical and temporal boundaries and becoming simply music of the world. Too much emphasis? Maybe, but listen to the mesmeric “Jonny O’the brine” with his stubborn percussion in a sort of acoustic techno and its almost free trumpet which then mounts and overlaps like Mongezi Feza’s in Rock Bottom. Or “The bonny bunch of roses” with its aerial flutes, gypsy violins and oriental vocal inserts and then we’ll talk about it! In fact, let’s see if you can stop with the dramatic and orchestral version of “Blackbird”…

Finally, there is the most atypical project, “Van Diemen’s Land”, realized with the Notes Inegales contemporary music ensemble. Their leader, Peter Wiegold, weaves together jazz, electronic, world and contemporary influences in a minimalist plot; a dreamlike, hypnotic, dense and soft base where Lee’s aerial and intense voice finds the ideal environment to express itself. Once again the fusion between ancient and modern is amazing as witnessed for example by “Ramblin’ Boys” and “Middle Of the Ocean”.

The Scotsman James Yorkston is certainly one of the best representatives of today’s folk songwriting. His works, characterized by his feeble but velvety voice, have by now consolidated a very precise poetic and authorial identity, characterized by a delicate and never over the top writing, injected with a sweet melancholy. The masterpiece is probably missing (although perhaps “Just Beyond The River” and “When The Haar Rolls In”...) but his works are never less than good and constitute a familiar ritual for those who appreciate it, which is difficult to renounce.

But that’s not all. In fact, in 2016, in parallel with his solo career, Yorkston joined forces with jazz-trained double bass player Jon Thorne and, above all, with the virtuoso of the sarangi (a traditional Indian string instrument) and singer Suhail Yusuf Khan for the publication of “Everything sacred”, which was followed the following year by “Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars”. The records are described by Yorkston himself as “collection of traditional Indian and UK folk songs, beautiful originals and idiosyncratic covers”. And in keeping with the humble way of Yorkston’s way of making music, he and his companions do not venture into risky mergers of West and East, but rather propose a gentle fusion of their own sensibilities and styles.  

The result is a music that flows in a natural way both in the pieces of British origin and in those most influenced by the Indian component with the final result that, going on with the listening, the curiosity to identify the elements coming from one or the other culture is soon exhausted, leaving rather only the pure pleasure of abandoning oneself to an ecstatic music. 

And it is easy to be kidnapped by the jam raga folk of “Knochentanz”, to immerse yourself in the spirituality of “Sufi Song” and “Everything sacred” or to be enchanted by the sweetness of “Song for Thirza“.

Surely the argument of music as a universal language is often abused or used inappropriately, but in cases like this it represents a simple and incontrovertible truth. This project once again emphasises that cultural barriers exist only for those who want to divide and that music and popular culture are universal languages if only one is willing to really listen to them.

There could be no greater contrast between the kindness of Yorkston’s music and the roughness of Richard Dawson‘s music. The Newcastle native’s style is wild and primitive, avant-garde and extreme. The record “The Glass Trunk” is a perfect example of this: the songs sung a cappella by an often clumsy voice or by a choir that combines epicity with dissonance, are alternated with instrumental fragments for harp and fractured and cacophonic electric guitar, in which folk is treated like the blues in “Trout Mask Replica”.

The subsequent “Nothing Important” maintains a similar alternation with two instrumental pieces with an experimental flavour, framing two long and imposing compositions. In the instrumentals we admire Dawson’s guitar style (a semi acoustic electrified with a derailing sound) where we can find the best of the avant-garde guitar (Marc Ribot, Loren Connors, Derek Bailey, Zoot Horn Rollo, Bill Orcutt, Richard Youngs, etc.) centrifuged however in a personal and eccentric whole. The title track is a ballad with angular and complex melodies interpreted by the usual dazed voice and accompanied by a lacerated and dissonant guitar. In the composition there are two original fingerpicking guitar solo fugues (not John Fahey style but … Richard Dawson…. style). “Vile stuff” is instead a more percussive and obsessive but nonetheless compelling and overwhelming piece.

Dawson’s music is characterized by an attitude that we could define “pub-like”. Both instrumental and vocal performances are presented in a deliberately “drunken” guise capable of creating the interesting ambiguity of not being able to see the boundary between intellectualism and spontaneity or between deliberate dissonance and actual discord. An approach that allows the English musician, on the one hand, to reappropriate the extemporaneity proper to folk music and, on the other, to combine it with an avant-garde inclination, compensating for a certain seriousness that we sometimes find in the “contemporaneity” of folk music and which may seem excessive and, in the end, unsuitable for the very essence of traditional music.

A little tipsy choir that we find, for example, in “Ogre”, a track from the 2017 album “Peasant”. This work is characterised by excellent writing and preserves all the characteristics of Dawson’s music intact, thus presenting itself not only as his most enjoyable album, but also the perfect one to bring the artist closer for the first time.

But when we seemed to have understood everything about Richard Dawson, the Newcastle native manages once again to confuse us with “2020”. It is in fact an unpredictable and decidedly more difficult record than the previous one, all played on contrasts, first of all that of being at the same time his best produced and “melodic” record, but also the craziest and most multiform one. His guitar has never been so docile, but also so hard and noisy and often within the same track. Folk and avant-garde are no longer sufficient to describe Dawson’s music, which seems to take the decisive step towards a music free from all schemes and ties and which finds its essence in imponderability and the search for perfection of imperfection.

At the end of the record we realize that maybe Dawson really understood everything about folk and that after all he is nothing but the modern and oblique version of storytellers: the (im)perfect man to tell the schizoid and contradictory society we live in.

Finally, let’s take a step back to the introduction where we talked about memory as a fundamental pillar of popular music. In today’s slowly virtualizing world, where memory is measured in Gigabytes, it seems increasingly difficult to remember its value.  

Yet it has always been the driving force behind so much art, from “high” to “low” and popular music represents the “low” music par excellence. One could say that popular music is to classical music as memory is to history. Just as history is concerned with handing down to posterity the events of humanity, operating at a higher level that cares more about the people than about individuals, in the same way cultured music seeks the high registers of the sublime, of beauty and pain, in a work of synthesis capable of expressing the very essence of humanity in order to project it into eternity. Popular music on the other hand deals with the protagonists of everyday life and with the joys and sorrows that are handed down from generation to generation (precisely memory). For this reason memory is a fundamental accessory, precisely because it is complementary to the broader and, in a certain sense, dutifully “distant” vision of history. In order to truly understand the past, it is necessary to “remember”, that is, to include the human factor. This is the work that popular music has been dealing with for thousands of years. 

And if for folk musicians, memory is a fundamental part of their way of living and conceiving music, this cannot be said for rock musicians, whose gaze is usually turned towards the present and who, thanks to such an approach, have rarely managed to face folk music with the necessary depth of vision, ending up simply using some styling cues for the sole purpose of hybridizing them with their own formula. Of course there are significant exceptions and in this sense it seems interesting to point out two examples of artists coming from the pop rock side who have been able to overcome this cultural fence and, even if in a different or even specular way, have worked on memory to propose their reinterpretation of tradition.

The first example is “Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine” by Declan O’Rourke, a successful singer-songwriter in his homeland who, with this record, has realised the artistic dream of a lifetime. The result of 16 years of research and writing, the record focuses entirely on the great Irish famine of the 19th century. The lyrics speak of poverty and pain, solidarity and hope in the new world. O’Rourke manages, using the grammar and instruments typical of Irish folk music, to write 13 original songs of great value that combine the great tradition of folk writing with the songwriting approach of our times.

Since the introduction of “Clogman’s Glen”, which delicately describes the nostalgia for the native places, you have the perception of being confronted with a story of strong emotions, told with great empathy. To do this O’Rourke is not afraid to use some clichés of Irish music, abounding for example with melodies performed by all the traditional instruments, pennywhistle, uilleann pipes (the Irish bagpipe), fiddle and Celtic harp. The use of full-bodied orchestral arrangements makes him play dangerously on the razor’s edge of rhetoric. But, and this is where the greatness of the record emerges, it is the author’s passion and love for the subject matter to come up. A passion that has pushed him to work in a painstaking way on the writing and on the choice of the arrangements, arriving with them to a chisel work such as to be able to touch the border of the emphasis without ever crossing it, exalting the emotional component without ever ending to be sugary or pathetic. The sincere participation of the author also shines through in the vocal interpretation: touching, delicate or powerful as needed. There would be many songs to mention, but the advice is to listen to the record in its entirety, possibly having the lyrics at hand to fully grasp its meaning.

From the musical point of view O’Rourke shows us that, starting from memory and filtering it through the experience and awareness of those who look to the past knowing its evolution, it is still possible to create music that is fresh and meaningful and not a mere reproduction of the styles of the past. From the human point of view, on the other hand, it reminds us that not forgetting the places we come from, especially when these are misery and pain, is the key not to remain insensitive to those who live in those same places today. In short, to remain human.

Then there is the strange case of The Memory Band, behind whose moniker we find Stephen Cracknell, an English pop musician. 

Cracknell describes the project as “an imaginary band, built inside a computer laying music drawn from the collective databank and made flesh by the contributions of numerous musicians. Live an acoustic band of ever changing numbers and on record a new approach to traditional music”.

More than a description, it seems a real declaration of intent, necessary to introduce a project, whose focus is the encounter between past and present, tradition and technology, between human and digital memory. Popular culture has always been the “container” of collective memory and cannot but measure itself in the age of information technology with the instrument that today performs the same function of memory collector: the computer. 

In short, Cracknell’s ambitious and original project seems to reconcile these two elements, reworking memory with today’s culture and technological tools. The Memory Band starts from the now digitized and virtually collective memory (“the collective databank”) to make music that is traditional in its founding core, but which is made with today’s instruments and influences: electronics, sampling, field recordings, spoken word and hauntological spirit (it is no coincidence that the band also collaborated with Belbury Poly). 

Already in the first records it is possible to find the original experiments of “Madlove and The bee”, built around a beat and sampled sounds, the evocative “Fanny adams“, “Blackberry way” where we find a guitar that smells of Africa or the infectious choral “Ghosts”. In these songs, the integration between modern and ancient appears completely natural. However, there is no lack of more traditional tracks such as “Blackwaterside” whose vinyl clicks recalls the treatment that a memory expert such as Caretaker gives to old time music records or the certainly less modernist but absolutely amazing “I Wish, I wish” which reminds the best Fairport Convention.

The project, however, is fully grown with “On The Chalk (Our Navigation…)” which Fred Thomas, in his album on the piano, rightly describes as “a return to the computer” that is the virtual origin of the project. The album makes greater use of samples, field recordings and completely eliminates the human voice to make room for pre-existing pieces of spoken word. The result, as well as being a small masterpiece, is proof that modern traditional music is really possible. Without wasting too many words, enjoy the whole record or, if you really want tips, try the ghostly “The wearing of the horns”, the kinematics “When I was On Horseback“, the sweet lullaby of “What Blood Is This”, the trip-hop-post-folk of “Facing The Granite Country”.

So here we are at the end of this long (albeit shorter than this theme would deserve) journey. We have only been able to talk about a few artists, but we believe that they represent good points of reference for those who want to undertake the journey of discovery of contemporary folk.

The more crafty ones may have noticed a heavy absence in the article: I am referring to woman, or rather the female voice. This absence is not due to the misogyny of the author, but rather to the need to talk about it in depth and for this reason we will return to the folk topic, talking exclusively about his feminine soul. So, if it will please you, goodbye…

APPENDIX
We have put together some of the songs of the artists we talked about plus a few more goodies. Click on this link and enjoy listening!