Eliza Carthy & the Wayward Band - Big Machine

The Guardian 100

(Topic/Proper)

Four years ago, Eliza Carthy assembled a folk big band of distinguished friends to help promote her Wayward Daughter project. They gave some memorable concerts, and now – at last – all 12 have recorded an album together. It’s remarkable as much for the quality and range of her singing as for the inventive arrangements. Most of the songs are traditional, and include a furious, edgy treatment of Devil in the Woman, a story of domestic abuse now driven on by brass and electric guitar, to the gently emotional, fiddle-backed lament I Wish That the Wars Were Over, or the grand and brooding Fade & Fall (Love Not). Then there’s a jaunty jazzy setting for Ewan McColl’s The Fitter’s Song, and Carthy’s You Know Me, an angry and timely but uplifting folk-rock hip-hop response to the refugee crisis, on which she is joined by MC Dizraeli.

Thu Feb 02 18:45:38 GMT 2017

The Guardian 80

(Topic)

No one has put folk through more rinses than Carthy the younger; trip-hop, drum’n’bass, cabaret and marching bands are among styles she’s mixed with mournful ballad, jolly shanty and her own songbook. Here she leads a 12-piece ensemble – brass, fiddles, the works – on a bravura romp through songs old and new. It’s a less rumbustious beast than the defunct Bellowhead, though its thumping rock drums can be equally wearing. Among the standouts are a theatrical version of Ewan MacColl’s The Fitter’s Song, the crazed instrumental Love Lane, and Carthy’s own You Know Me, an empathic comment on the refugee crisis. Teddy Thompson, Damien Dempsey and MC Dizraeli lend guest vocals to Carthy’s own, and her fiddle-playing is as incendiary as ever.

Sun Jan 29 08:00:18 GMT 2017