Solasta - A Cure for the Curious

The Guardian 80

Self-released

A folk column in a national newspaper is a precious, rare beast. Such beasts need to pay attention to their regular sources of sustenance, but also find new morsels that will keep it alive. To this end, meet Solasta, an absurdly young trio of fiddler Elisabeth Flett, cellist Hannah Thomas and guitarist Jamie Leeming, who crowdfunded this debut album through Kickstarter last summer. The results are arresting, involving and inventive, fizzing with ideas about folk music’s instrumental past and its future.

A Cure for the Curious begins with descending, harshly scraped strings – a bold, jolting start – before plunging us into the Greek folk of The Plate Smasher. Every playing style is thrown boldly into the mix thereafter: gorgeous, long drones on the beautifully mournful Lost and Found, technically blazing passages at speed in The Pirate Set, strings as the textures of cresting waves in the beautiful Whitecaps. The compositions are inspired by folk originals or early music, or are inventive twists on old songs: Reels and The Hornpipe Set both reinvent ancient wheels. The latter’s final passage, particularly, is having so much fun you’d swear it won’t stop after the fade-out.