I went last night to hear The Furrow Collective at the Colchester Arts Centre, on the strength of having heard one member of the quartet before as part of a different line-up at Ipswich, and liked her. The friend I went with to that gig really liked Lucy Farrell's voice as well, and so we agreed to give another of her incarnations a go. The members of the Furrow Collective are all young (by my standards), the next generation on from Martin Carthy and Martin Simpson, but well established.
One reviewer described them as a bleakly charming and intriguing curiosity, which I should think pleased them. All four are good singers, giving strength in depth in the vocals, and they take it in turns to lead on songs, giving an interesting variety of styles and accents, since two members of the group are Scottish and one is a man. Between them they muster a harp, a guitar, two fiddles, a banjo, a concertina, and a musical saw. Their sound is pretty stripped down, and I liked it a lot. Their timing is subtle but very tight.
They have the knack of finding good versions of traditional songs, which is a distinct talent. It's always a sad disappointment sitting through a set by somebody with a great voice or slick guitar technique, who has managed to come up with duff versions of everything (or bad songs. Unfortunately there are many more would-be singer-songwriters than there are good songs written in this world. For further elaboration on the theme see last year's splendid film release Frank, a tale of mismatched musical talent and ambition, also featuring a brilliant performance by Michael Fassbender managing to convey a remarkable range of emotions while wearing a large papier-mache head that completely hides his face).
It was a dark and a windy night, and I wouldn't have chosen to go out in it if I hadn't already got my ticket and arranged to meet somebody. That is one of the advantages of buying tickets in advance even for things which you are sure are not going to sell out, it makes you go and then you enjoy it when you get there. The Arts Centre was nowhere near full for The Furrow Collective, which was a great waste given the quality of the music on offer. There again, almost no folk musicians except Martin Carthy and Cara Dillon do completely fill the Colchester Arts Centre. Last night they hadn't bothered to set out chairs in either of the side aisles, and had put chairs and tables cafe style in front of the stage, to help make the place look fuller. They are trying to raise funds at the moment for new chairs, and I hope they succeed since the current ones were designed with no reference to the human form, and my back was aching long before we ever got through the support act.
This morning I wound up the bathroom blind to see that a green bucket of prunings and a Strulch bag stuffed with other empty bags, which I had left on the lawn the day before, had blown into the rose bed landing on the bulbs whose emerging leaves I'd been so careful not to crush when mulching the bed. Our initial attempt to film the performance of the new anti-rabbit gate failed as well, since the camera blew over in the small hours. I hate this wind.
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