WRECKERS

In some respects I can see how the music business has improved in the past thirty years or so. Or at least the distribution methods have. When I was a teenager in the seventies about the only way to hear about obscure foreign artists on minor labels was via an off-hand mention by an established artist in a magazine interview, or from a well-informed friend who worked at a local record shop. To actually lay hands on these imported albums you usually had to have that same friend at the local record shop be willing to special-order it for you, and more often then not you had to drop a deposit or at least pay for the shipping up-front. And after all that you often had no way of knowing if 1) the album would actually appear, and 2) whether it would be any good.

Today albums from artists like the Morrigan on labels like English Garden can be ordered on-line and delivered via UPS in a few days. And since even the most humble bands all have websites (or at least a mySpace account), you at least have an idea of what you’re buying before it ends up in your collection.

This is one of those minor label, second-tier bands who wouldn’t have made their way on to many (if any) record store shelves in the seventies or even eighties, but now they can be added to your collection without going any further than the mailbox on the front porch. Who says technology isn’t wonderful?

Not that this is a masterpiece or anything like that, it’s just that the progression in music sourcing struck me while listening to this CD the other day. The Morrigan seem to be a regional phenomenon, much like Ezra or Bluehorses or any number of other British prog folk bands I’ve picked up on the web in recent years. In fact these guys have some similarities to both of those bands with their blend of Celtic- laced rhythms, traditional English folk influences and more modern arrangements. Even with major label promotion I doubt if these guys would ever amass a large enough fan base to get rich or anything, but this is a decent album anyway.

This was the first album the band released on an actual label; prior to that they had a couple of releases on cassette that were recorded using mostly amateur equipment that also ended up being pirated to vinyl elsewhere in Europe. Good thing too since those bootlegs brought the band to the attention of English Garden records, which bankrolled this release and have since reissued the rest of the catalog.

The lead-in “The Miller's Dance” is an instrumental jig of sorts with plenty of energy and upbeat tempo, and perhaps gives the wrong impression that these guys are no more than a group of musicians who hop up old folk tunes for gratuitous use at pubs during weekend evenings live shows. There’s some truth to that description perhaps, but the tracks that follow show more ambition and creativity. “Yarrow” introduces the vocals and woodwind work of Cathy Alexander, whose classic folk voice works quite well throughout the album, while the title track interjects a tight electric guitar and synthesizer interplay (although the production is a bit muffled due to the limitations of the eight-track equipment used by the band in recording this album).

“Banks of Green Willow”, “Cold Blows the Wind” and “The Agincourt Carol / La Rotta” are more traditional numbers with not a whole lot to recommend them, and so are “Cold Haily Windy Night/ Drowsy Maggie” but here the band picks up the tempo and layers several woodwinds to liven up the music. I’m reminded a bit of Spriguns of Tolgus as well.

The band veers into AOR territory with the original compositions “Wheels Turning” and “When the Rain Comes Down”, neither all that progressive but with decent guitar and rather sultry vocals from Ms. Alexander and a change of pace from the half-album’s worth of more staid folk that precede them. These remind me of some of those chic eighties bands like Martha & the Muffins or even Dexy’s Midnight Runners

More traditional tunes with the closing “Dark Girl Dressed in Blue / The Doubting Page” but again the modernized arrangements and combination of electric guitar and synthesized instrumentation will get your foot tapping at least.

This isn’t a classic by any means, and it probably won’t see too much time on my disc changer after listening to it for the past couple of weeks, but in all it’s not a bad piece of work to pick up if you can find a reasonably-priced copy and long for just a bit of nostalgia with a trip down musical memory lane to what a lot of the late nineties non-dance music sounded like. Three stars.

peace