Ochre by Andrew Cronshaw

It’s not uncommon these days to hear British musicians investigating foreign traditions; indeed Andrew Cronshaw explored Finnish music with his last album, 'On The Shoulders Of The Great Bear', made in Finland’s traditional music heartland. But for his new one, 'Ochre', it’s back to Britain, and the view is reversed: musicians from the traditions of the Middle East, Greece and Wales react to and build on music exotic to them – that of England.

The result, with each of the seven tracks using as its starting point a song melody from English tradition, is inventive, image-rich and voluptuous.

The team that gathered in January 2004, not in England but at a studio in the green rolling countryside of the south-west tip of Wales, comprises Syrian qanun and oud virtuoso Abdullah Chhadeh, the great Welsh triple-harpist Llio Rhydderch, Arabic vocal diva Natacha Atlas, Pontic lyra virtuoso Matthaios Tsahourides from northern Greece, multi-talented Australia-resident Brit Ian Blake on bass clarinet, clarinet, soprano sax and prepared piano, Irish double bassist Bernard O’Neill, and Cronshaw himself on electric zither, the 6 foot long Slovakian flute fujara, Chinese brass-reeded ba-wu and other instruments not usually associated with English music. But after all, much of what might be considered English culture, including music, has its origins somewhere else; this is just a continuation of that process.

'Ochre' was one of the four nominated CDs in the Critics’ Poll category of the 2005 BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music (the other three CDs nominated were by Youssou N’Dour, Lhasa and Tinariwen), and Andrew Cronshaw was one of the four nominees as Musician of the Year in the 2005 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

(The liner notes for individual tracks are on the Bandcamp page for each track.)

Some review quotes:

"This fabulously restrained and crystalline-cool album consists of, strange to relate, versions of English folk tunes."
"The result is splendidly unclassifiable."
"In the end, there's something unsettling about this - a single track might suggest the open flatness of East Anglia, a Zen garden or a Nordic wilderness.” - Peter Culshaw, The Observer

"The musicians feel their way into the material with supreme delicacy... But it's the sense of rootedness in a gritty marginal England that allows this music its brush with profundity"
- Mark Hudson, The Daily Telegraph

“It’s exotic and mysterious, and it comes as a shock to realise that the music being played is actually English.” - Colin Irwin, fRoots

“Don't worry about categorising this album as folk, classical, world or any other kind of music - just file under Essential.”
- Mel McClellan, BBCi.

“One of the finest albums of the year”
– Fiona Talkington, BBC Radio 3 Late Junction

“Beautiful, evocative music...an album that will surely be welcomed with open arms throughout the world.”
- Charlie Gillett, BBC London & World Service

“Consummate musicianship it may have, but it is the ideas that seethe and shoal in this music that really excite.”
- Ken Hunt, Record Collector

“We are compelled to explore the universality, the wider outlook and potential of a tradition…the essence of each song is taken on a journey like never before.”
- Jennifer Byrne, Sing Out! (USA)

“Once in a while I come across a completely unexpected type of music that is so incredibly beautiful that I stop all I'm doing and at the end of the record can only do one thing: hit the repeat button. This happened to me a few weeks ago when I heard the new CD of old English folk songs by Andrew Cronshaw, an obstinate figure in the world of British folk music. I was blown away.”
- Ton Maas, Ode (USA & Netherlands)

"“This man is an English original. He paints unusual sound pictures with the melodies we love and brings out totally unexpected aspects of them.”
- Vic Smith, The Folk Diary

“Brilliantly adventurous… an all time classic.”
- Keith Hudson, Taplas

Andrew Cronshaw is a British multi-instrumentalist and producer, soloist and also leader of the Finnish/Armenian/British band SANS, who also has a long career as a writer on roots musics, particularly those of the Nordic, Baltic, eastern and central European and Iberian regions, for fRoots, The Rough Guide to World Music etc.

andrewcronshaw.com
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