NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA

This album is a beauty! The music here is located between folk and chamber music with some textures evoking Mike Oldfield and some even Steve Reich (although different from Reich most songs are short and the band never takes too long to leave any particular place), and a dip of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Most songs are carried by light but often densely woven motifs, sometimes by the piano, sometimes by the guitar, often later enriched by clarinet/oboe/bassoon and violin/cello. Some are instrumental, some have choir parts, some are led by Sharron Fortnams angel-like folk voice. "Every Day Hath its Night", "Joy for my Heart" and "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" are fairly straight folk songs, whereas elsewhere tracks are carried by crafty instrumental arrangements elaborating rich melodic material ("Kingstanding"), and again elsewhere ("Mimnermus in Church") polyphonic choir arrangements govern. Sometimes these elements are all mixed ("He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes"). Some songs and parts are fairly minimalist and simple, but most are well worked out with the odd unexpected turn, some development, and particularly much elaboration of the tunes and harmonies. The mood is somewhere between joy, relaxedness and at times cloudy weather in the countryside (the whole album is the total opposite of "urban"); it never gets really dark. There are some personal connections to the Cardiacs, but the connection is rather in quality than in style.

Depending on what kind of melody speaks to you, you'll find some truly magic moments here. You'd be hard pressed to call this "rock" though. It's a very consistent and enjoyable album of beautiful rather soft but quite unique music. A solid four stars (that's exactly how everyone scored this album up to now, so how subjective is taste actually?).

An intricate chamber folk affair from this aquatic unit. Though part of the extended musical family around the Cardiacs, the musical style is rather different (despite the name there's no hint of "The Seaside", for instance), the emphasis is instead on producing beautiful progressive folk music with lyrics taken from classic poetry. With the "chamber" in question truly packed with performers, and a particular knack for working in interesting vocal performances, it's a very atmospheric album with a unique atmosphere of its own. Nowhere near as stale or stuffy as traditional folk, whilst not out to be weird for the sake of weird, the North Sea Radio Orchestra is simply an expression of the personality of its creators and a truly unique aesthetic offering.