John Buchan and a different pair of shoes

My drinking friends at the pub and I have, over recent weeks, been working extra hard to put the world to rights. My mate Phil, for example has recently re-read Orwell’s ‘1984’ and has been providing a commentary on its uncanny relevance to the modern state of things. For my part, I’ve been enthusing about the writings of John Buchan. Taking a break from my usual high-fibre diet of literary fiction, I’ve been indulging in a few of the ‘ripping yarns’ of the Scottish-born author, best known for ’The Thirty-Nine Steps’.

Buchan (1875-1940) had a remarkable life as a novelist, historian and diplomat who ended up as Governor General of Canada. His literary speciality was writing what he called ‘shockers’, by which he meant an adventure story that combined personal and political dramas, where the events were pretty implausible but the reader is just able to believe in them. If you can disregard the casual, unselfconscious racism and misogyny that was characteristic of early 21^st century writing Buchan’s adventure stories are still great fun. Part of the fun for me is his use of curious contemporary words and phrases which have since become anachronisms - but are surely worth reviving.  

For example, in ‘Mr Standfast’ there’s the use of the phrase “a different pair of shoes” where, nowadays, we’d be more likely to refer (with no greater logic) to “a different kettle of fish”: “Letchford was a different pair of shoes. He was some kind of a man, to begin with, and had an excellent brain and the worst manners conceivable...”

When reading ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’ I had to look up the word ‘ulster’ which, if you didn’t know, is a rather long, double-breasted coat, with two vertical, parallel rows of buttons, as in: “He lent me a big driving coat—and never troubled to ask why I had started on a motor tour without possessing an ulster...”

And do you know what it is to feel ‘hipped’? In ‘The Power-House’ the protagonist Leithen admits: “I had had a bad reaction from the excitements of the summer, and in these days I was feeling pretty well hipped and overdone...” In US English ‘feeling hipped’ seems to mean being excessively interested or preoccupied with something, (which could the case here,) but there is an old-fashioned use in British English of ‘hipped’ meaning depressed or melancholy. This seems to fit better with the feeling of being “pretty well hipped and overdone.”

Apart from these linguistic curiosities, Buchan could make some serious and prescient observations through the vehicle of his ‘shockers’. In ‘The Power-House’, Leithen meets Lumley ­- a man who inhabits a world “without the ring of civilisation”, a man of “pure intelligence … stripped of every shred of humanity”. In a chilling exchange Lumley says:

“Did you ever reflect, Mr. Leithen, how precarious is the tenure of the civilisation we boast about?"

"I should have thought it fairly substantial," I said, "and the foundations grow daily firmer."

He laughed. "That is the lawyer's view, but believe me you are wrong. Reflect, and you will find that the foundations are sand. You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn..."

We have only to think of President Trump’s supporters storming Congress in January 2021 or Putin’s forces directly targeting a children's hospital and a maternity ward in Mariupol in March 2022 to see how thin is the line between civilisation and barbarism.  

‘The Power-House’ was published in 1916 but what Lumley tells Leithen about our politicians could have been inspired by the pandemic’s PPE scandal or the financial instability caused by Liz Truss’s brief tenure as Prime Minister: “Take the business of Government. When all is said, we are ruled by the amateurs and the second-rate. The methods of our departments would bring any private firm to bankruptcy. The methods of Parliament—pardon me—would disgrace any board of directors...”

It wasn’t just George Orwell who predicted the state in which we would find ourselves.

Some Hauntological Musical Curiosities for Halloween

If you’re looking for some fresh music to add to your Halloween playlists here’s a few spooky selections from the world of slightly strange folk music, to make a change from I Put a Spell On You and The Monster Mash.

First up, is the eponymous debut album by The Witching Tale. What could be more appropriate for Halloween? I’m afraid, on first encounter, I was all too ready to dismiss this as just so much airy-fairy hokum. The purple prose of the press release didn’t help to dispel this impression, describing The Witching Tale as “a black celebration of the magical power of eroticism.” And yet, listening to these ten tracks in the days leading up to Halloween last year, two thoughts occurred to me. First, this is the perfect soundtrack for an All Hallows’ Eve gathering. Second, the music is intriguing and – dare I say – enchanting.

The Witching Tale are Michael J York (synthesisers, bagpipes, piano, hurdy-gurdy and a host of other instruments) and Katharine Blake (vocals and recorders.) Blake is best known as a founding member of Mediaeval Baebes. The blend of multi-layered analogue synths, traditional instruments and Blake’s flawless voice creates a powerful atmosphere redolent of folk horror. Tracks like ‘The Falling Garden,’ with its off-kilter harmonies and straggling recorders, could be music from ‘The Wicker Man’ or ‘Children of the Stones.’ If hauntological curiosities are your thing, you too may fall under The Witching Tale’s spell.

My second offering is another debut album, Ingen Mere Gråter by Ævestaden. There’s a subgenre called ‘dream pop’ that includes bands from Cocteau Twins to Beach House – Ævestaden’s music could be described as ‘dream folk.’ This Norwegian/Swedish trio’s debut is a little, enigmatic gem – and I’m completely captivated by it.

Ævestaden are Eir Vatn Strøm, Levina Storåkern and Kenneth Lien, all fine multi-instrumentalists and singers. They describe their songs as being about the conscious and the subconscious, the secular and the sacred, life and death. They combine traditional instrumentation – lyre, fiddle, mouth harp, langeleik and kantele – with a subtle use of electronics, creating a bewitching sonic backdrop to their melodically adventurous vocals. It’s hard to find comparisons but, at times, Ævestaden’s music reminded me of English psychedelic folk duo The Left Outsides.

Ingen Mere Gråter is made up of three traditional songs and three original songs, the finale being ‘Flytta’ where, the music is gradually joined by the sound of a rainstorm which ends abruptly before the final track ‘Heilo’ – thirty-seven seconds of birdsong fading into the distance – as if to suggest, where human words and music cease, nature endures. There’s a definite other-worldliness to Ævestaden’s music, which lends itself perfectly to this season of liminality.

Finally, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Anna Tam’s album Hatching Hares. As well as playing cello and piano, Anna uses more historic folk instruments like nyckelharpa, viola da gamba and hurdy gurdy to accompany her singing. As it happens, Anna (like Katharine Blake of The Witching Tale) is a former member of Medieval Baebes.

Hatching Hares includes ten songs and five instrumentals (most of the latter being traditional tunes.) There’s a lot of variety on the album but I’m including it in my spooky Halloween selection here because there’s something a little eerie, to my ears, about tunes like ‘St Martin’s Waltz’ and the song ‘The Snow It Melts the Soonest.’ What’s more, Anna includes a proper ghost story, enhanced by creepy electronic effects, in the form of ‘Holland Handkerchief.’ So, whether it’s The Witching Tale’s spellbinding soundscapes, Ævestaden’s Scandinavian dream-folk or the ghostly singing and playing of Anna Tam, why not try out these spine-chilling selections this Halloween?  

Gabriel Moreno, origami rats and sellotaped hearts

I confess to a real phobia of rodents so, when I first came across an album called ‘The Year of the Rat,’ its cover emblazoned with an image of a rat – albeit an origami rat – I had my doubts. But Gabriel Moreno’s fourth album, released earlier this year, won me over with its charm and inventiveness. Moreno is a Gibraltarian poet and singer-songwriter who also happens to be Gibraltar’s Cultural Ambassador for 2022 and his music has been compared to Leonard Cohen, Neil Diamond and Georges Brassens. Like Cohen, Moreno has published several books of poetry, in both English and Spanish. And, like Cohen, he favours a nylon-stringed guitar and a deep voice delivering poetic lyrics. On some tracks, like ‘When the City Wakes Up,’ he even uses a chorus of female backing singers.

Even before considering the lyrics, I was intrigued by some of the songs titles – ‘Dance in an Empty Field,’ ‘Sellotape My Heart.’ But the lyrics are remarkable; they’re full of delightful surprises but are never awkward or overblown. There is a danger – with poets who are also songwriters – that their song lyrics are no more than poems set to redundant music, that the words have more weight than the music, as if the text could do its job on its own without the need for a musical accompaniment. Ideally, the music should be integral to the lyrics, and vice versa – otherwise it’s not songwriting but mere words-set-to-music. Moreno understand this. Being both a poet and a songwriter, he makes the words and music work perfectly together.

There’s great humour too. ‘Solitude’ addresses Solitude personified:

“...Solitude, I am sick and tired of being alone with you, surely things must change...” and “...O solitude you charlatan, you made porridge with our brains...”

‘Feel Like Dancing’ is an alternative take on the countless pop songs that express the desire to get on the dance floor; Moreno’s is a tribute to the introvert’s joy in dancing alone at home:

“I feel like dancing, alone in my room, / here I am the genius of mirrors and cells, / I am building a dance floor with my favourite books, / I am closing the window to my worldly concerns...” while ‘Everyday News’ is a beautiful, piano-based song, which has the lullaby-quality of some of Tom Waits’ early heart-breaking songs. Moreno’s music, though, has an unmistakably European feel, with its lyrics referencing Baudelaire and Yeats and a musical landscape that reminds me of the best of Peter Sarstedt.

On the off chance, I searched to see if Moreno might be touring the UK anytime soon. It turns out he’s appearing at several festivals this summer including the Purbeck Valley Folk Festival in Dorset. There he’ll be playing on Sunday 21 August with his band The Quivering Poets (who are described as “a troupe of highly acclaimed musicians from the London and Barcelona Alternative Folk scene.”) He’s also taking part in a Songwriters’ Circle on the Sunday morning with Steve Knightley and Kathryn Williams. So, I’ve gone ahead and booked a ticket for Purbeck. I’m really looking forward to seeing this unique artist perform live.

Frigg, The Mysterines, Nick Mason, Red Guitars, Justin Mauro & Mauro Durante and more – and it’s only June!

 Well, we’re practically halfway through the year and I haven’t told you the half of what I’ve been up to. So, here goes... I won’t mention all the downers – dentist appointments and funerals, podiatrists and plantar fasciitis etc. Let’s just focus on the fun stuff. So, in January, I had the privilege of interviewing Esko and Petri – two members of Finnish folk band Frigg - for an article which appeared in the May issue of the wonderful Songlines magazine.

Throughout February and March I was still contending with electricians, plasterers, painters and carpet fitters coming back and forth to repair and renovate my attic bedroom (see preceding blog post if you’re really interested!) but I did manage to catch some live music in the form of The Mysterines at Birmingham’s Castle and Falcon (where I’d seen This Is the Kit in November.) The Mysterines were very loud and powerful and their single ‘Life's a Bitch (But I Like it So Much)’ has been regularly disturbing my early morning snoozes, thanks to lots of airplay on BBC6 Music.

In April, I saw the American singer-songwriter Christopher Paul Stelling at a lovely venue - the Kitchen Garden - in Birmingham. Support was provided by my mate, the terrific Son of John. The following week I headed north to Newcastle for a ‘Spring Fling.’ This is much less romantic than it sounds – the Spring Fling is a gathering of dulcimer players organised by my mate Steve Gray on behalf of the Nonsuch Dulcimer Club. I’ve contributed an article to the club’s newsletter and – if you’re good – I’ll reprint it here on my blog. 

After Newcastle, it was time for some more live music – this time in the guise of former Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and his Saucerful of Secrets at Birmingham Symphony Hall. Saucerful of Secrets perform the early music of Pink Floyd and the band also includes former Floyd bassist Guy Pratt and former Spandau Ballet singer/guitarist Gary Kemp (the two are evidently best mates, judging by the highly recommended Rockonteurs podcast which they produce together.)

April ended with yet another gig in Birmingham and this was the best I’ve been to in many a long year. Birmingham’s O2 Institute played host to a reformed Red Guitars – one of my favourite indie bands of the 1980s. In the early eighties, while the aforementioned Spandau Ballet were topping the charts with hits like True and Gold, Hull-based Red Guitars were crafting a unique blend of indie rock and African jit-jive and releasing a classic gem of an album called Slow to Fade. Seeing Red Guitars play songs like ‘Remote Control,’ ‘Crocodile Tears’ and ‘Good Technology’ more than 30 years after this short-lived band split up seemed nothing short of miraculous and I was completely overwhelmed with a combination of joy and nostalgia for my youth. It was a pleasure to shake hands with bassist Lou Loudhailer, (who has featured elsewhere on this blog as part of Agent Starling.)

May meant more dulcimer playing. This time, a return visit to Halsway Manor in Somerset. It was a delight to meet mountain dulcimer teachers Doug Berch and Susan Trump and to reconnect with old friends and fellow dulcimerists. This was third visit to Halsway Manor and it’s always musically inspiring and spiritually refreshing. 

But no sooner was I back in Worcestershire, than it was off to Bewdley to see another remarkable gig – Justin Mauro and Mauro Durante. Justin and Mauro are the winners of this year’s Songlines Fusion Award Winner and they were amazing live – with their trance-like fiddle and electric guitar duets and the deceptively big sound of Durante’s frame drum.

Which brings us more or less up to date. Phew.

Seeing double - Good Habits and Agent Starling

Good Habits are a duo from Manchester - Bonnie Schwarz (vocals/cello) and Pete Shaw (accordion/cajón.) By a quirk of fate, they were touring New Zealand when the pandemic left them stranded in the town of Paekākāriki, so they took advantage of their exile to record their delightful debut album, Going for Broke.

The combination of cello and accordion might sound like an unpromising, insufficient line-up but Shaw's accordion displays a rich variety of styles, an equal partner to Schwarz's cello, while the latter's vocals are engagingly clear and unaffected.

On first hearing Going for Broke I found it an upbeat, pop-folk affair, reminiscent of Fairground Attraction - pleasing enough but not earth-shattering. But these songs take a while to reveal fully their complexity and the sophistication of their lyrics, melodies and arrangements. The duo are musical tricksters, relishing irregular time signatures and a tendency to reprise motifs just when you think the song is over.

After a few more listens I grew to love the emotional warmth and fullness of Good Habits' sound, so I was pleased to hear they’ve recently released a follow-up album, Antipody. One of the highlights of the new collection is a cover of ‘She Bangs the Drum’ (the 1989 hit by fellow Mancunians the Stone Roses.)

As with Going for Broke, Antipody chugs along, melodically and rhythmically hooking the listener from the opening track I Will Still Be Here. Schwarz's vocal blends warmly with the backdrop of her own cello and Shaw’s accordion and, best of all, the duo have retained their sense of playfulness. Now back in the UK, Good Habits are touring a number of venues, including Bristol Folk Festival and Shropshire’s adorable Beardy Folk Festival in June.

Another unusual duo who have recently released their second album are Agent Starling, featuring hurdy-gurdy player Quentin Budworth and Louise Duffy-Howard (aka Lou Loudhailer) on vocals, bass and rhythm tracks. Back in the 1980s, the latter was the bassist with one of my favourite indie bands, Red Guitars (who have recently reformed and are touring again.)

Agent Starling’s debut album European Howl was a complex, immersive and at times disorienting listening experience and their new release, Constellation of Birds, displays more of their mesmerising and highly original sound. There are seven new songs plus two traditional tunes, O’Carolan’s Irish waltz ‘Bridget Cruise’ (which is given an oddly Japanese flavour) and a version of Swedish polska ‘Hälleforsnäsar’ embedded inside a track called ‘Scandiland’ which begins like the incidental music to a Scandi-noir thriller. As with the first album, Constellation of Birds features the violin and cello of special guest Dexter Duffy-Howard.

With tracks like ‘Paqaratz’ and ‘The Stonemason’s Dream,’ Constellation of Birds is an album that firmly establishes Agent Starling as incomparable purveyors of a unique, edgy, off-kilter soundtrack to modern life.

Living on the ceiling

Avid followers of this blog may have been dismayed to find I haven’t published a new post here for a few months. (Well, I can hope that someone cares that much!) This sounds like a “my-dog-ate-my-homework” kind of excuse but here goes... At the end of last October, part of the ceiling of my attic collapsed. And so began a lengthy process of finding a builder and then waiting a few months for a succession of builders, plasterers, electricians, painters and carpet-fitters to come along, make repairs and renovations and leave me with a newly-restored attic/guest bedroom.

Of course, you can’t repair an attic while it’s full so it also necessitated me moving furniture, clothes, books, bric-a-brac and all the kinds of things you might expect to find in an attic ( - just about anything that you don’t want to keep in any other room and can’t bear to throw away - ) into various other parts of the house, including my office. If you want to stop a writer (or any other type of creative) from working I can recommend arranging for their attic ceiling to collapse as a perfect way to scupper all creative output for several months.

I have managed to write no more than one song and a handful of album reviews since the ceiling first began to fall down. Work on my novel, several short stories, ideas for articles, recordings for my next album and even blog posts has been suspended while, week after week, tradesmen have been running up and down my stairs at unexpected times of the day, turning my electricity on and off as the whim takes them, playing Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees at high volume and generating a cloud of dust that covered every surface of the house, only to be renewed the next day after Sisyphean efforts at hoovering and dusting.     

Now that the renovations are complete and I can gradually start moving things back to their rightful places (which, in some cases, is the charity shop or the recycling centre) I feel able to concentrate once more. So you can expect more regular blog posts while I play catch-up on the things I’ve been meaning to share with you. But, first, would you mind giving me a hand with some of these boxes?...

Ghost owls and sleeping spirals - a selection of albums from 2021

While last year provided extreme challenges for live music it also saw an outpouring of outstanding recordings. Many artists switched their energies into recording projects as tours and festivals were cancelled or postponed. So, here’s a selection of 2021 releases that are worth discovering - or revisiting...

Wardruna's stirring fifth album, Kvitravn, sounded like it could have been the dramatic soundtrack to a Viking movie - and with good reason; the Norwegian band's founder member, singer and composer Einar Selvik contributed music to the TV series Vikings.

Wardruna use rather esoteric instruments including the taglharpa, kravik-lyr and goat horn, along with occasional sound effects like thunder and wolves howling, in this collection of songs about white ravens, stags and spirit-weavers. This might all sound contrived but Wardruna perform with such conviction the effect is undeniably compelling.

Selvik has a background in black metal - he was previously the drummer in Gorgoroth - and insistent drums and potent vocals feature here, evidence that dark, pagan folk might, after all, be the more thoughtful cousin of satanic black metal.

Wardruna describe the album as "a visual soundscape" and, on tracks like 'Fylgjutal' and 'Vindavlarljod', it's easy to imagine raiders setting sail across the North Sea in longships. If you're facing a job interview or some other challenge Kvitravn could be just the thing to put you in an invincible frame of mind.

Fans of Wardruna will be pleased to hear the 2016 album by Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik Skuggsjá has just been reissued – and Warduna are embarking on a mammoth world tour starting in March.

In a very different style, another band who enjoy using esoteric instruments are Agent Starling, who have made the hurdy-gurdy cool (again.) I wrote about this duo’s debut album European Howl (not to mention their seasonal Northern Lights Trilogy EP) in a previous blog post, so I won’t repeat myself. However, I would count European Howl among the most original albums of 2021 and I am thrilled to learn that Agent Starling are next month releasing a follow-up full-length album - Constellation of Birds. I'll be reviewing that soon here on the blog. 

2021 also saw the release of Ghost Owl, which came about after wildlife conservationist and filmmaker/photographer Simon Hurwitz asked Brooks Williams to compose some music to accompany some short films. Williams (born in Georgia, USA but now resident in Cambridge, UK) is a long-serving purveyor of rootsy, full-blooded acoustic guitar. With touring on hold, he teamed up with violinist Aaron Catlow and the duo found themselves with an album’s worth of owl-inspired tunes.

These ten instrumentals evoke images of the majestic creature with the heart-shaped face. The marriage of guitar and violin recalls the style of Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick and, occasionally, of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.

The title track and ‘Rene’s Garden’ are sinuous and atmospheric, the ethereal violin on ‘Tipper’s Field’ is suitably owlish while ‘First Dusk’ is an old-time waltz. With the bonus of Hurwitz’s wonderful owl photography illustrating the CD, Ghost Owl is a delight.  

While Warduna’s Einar Selvik loves his taglharpa, Andy Aquarius prefers his harps to be of the Celtic variety. If you’re thinking Andy Aquarius can’t be his real name, you’d be right. Andy Ozbolt is a singer and multi-instrumentalist with German and Croatian roots, currently based in Berlin. His previous musical output has been accessible, dreamy pop, à la Tame Impala. But his 2021 album Chapel dispenses with synths and trippy drum patterns and features little more than his self-built Celtic harp and vocals.

The opening title track sets the tone with three minutes of solo harp before Aquarius’s vocal begins, soon joined by Enya-like backing vocals provided by Maja Presnell. Aquarius’s singing style reminds me of fellow German multi-instrumentalist Nils Kercher, and the overall effect is similar to Kercher’s earlier albums – gentle and meditative.

Although there are only six tracks most are over six minutes, allowing plenty of time for the listener to get lost in the unhurried flow of the music. At times, it could almost be the kind of new age music used as an accompaniment to yoga, but there is enough melodic and rhythmic interest to make Chapel more than mere background listening.    

One of the most surprising collaborations of 2021 was Sleeping Spirals which saw singer, accordionist and dancer Hannah James team up with French cellist Toby Kuhn. This is a exquisitely-produced album, both musically and in terms of the cover design – the CD is a thing of beauty. The combination of James’ voice and Kuhn’s often highly-experimental cello creates an atmosphere like a melancholic, brooding European folk tale, unnerving but compelling. 

Not many artists can boast twenty-three studio albums to their name but Welsh singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph achieved this last year with the release of 1960 – an album that takes its title from the year of his birth. The eleven tracks on 1960 form an extended reflection on reaching the age of sixty and all that entails. The opening song ‘Born Too Late’ laments the fact that Joseph missed out on being in Laurel Canyon in 1971, imagining what that would have been like, and considers “How long does it take for a man to know himself?” A pleasant surprise is that the track ‘House’ features, rather wonderfully, the singer-songwriter Janis Ian on piano and vocals.

Finally, if I had to name my favourite release of 2021 it would have to be global folk collective Mishra’s album Reclaim. Recorded ‘live-in-the-room’ in a farmhouse in Gloucestershire, Reclaim has immense freshness and positivity, a conscious attempt to reclaim the joy that music can give us when so much of our freedom has been restricted. Fusing British and American folk music with Indian classical music, Mishra have a deftness and a wonderful lightness of touch. The blending of Ford Collier’s whistles with Kate Griffin’s vocals and banjo and John Ball’s tabla accompaniment is unique and irresistible, as is Ball’s santoor playing on ‘This is the Sound.’ I am tempted to go off and live in a parallel universe where Reclaim’s bouncy, opening track ‘The Truth’ would be number one in the charts for a very long time. If this were the case, all would be well! But, if not, why not allow yourself to be transported in your imagination by trying some of the albums mentioned here.

The story is the telling - This is the Kit, plus by Nuala Honan (at The Castle & Falcon, Birmingham - 16 November 2021) and Alaw (at Bitterley Village Hall - 3 December 2021.)

In a year in which live music was touch and go, it was great to be able to attend two fantastic gigs towards the end of 2021. In November, I went to the Castle and Falcon in Birmingham to see This Is the Kit. It was a pleasure to see Kate Stables and her band play in a fairly intimate venue and the evening was made all the more special by the fact that I was joined by my nephew Tom (a Birmingham resident and, like his uncle, a fan of slightly quirky music.)

This Is the Kit were supported by Bristol-based Australian Nuala Honan and her band. I was so taken with Nuala’s infectious enthusiasm that, in the interval, I made a beeline to her merch table, had a pleasant chat with Nuala herself and bought her CD Doubt & Reckoning. The album is perfect music for driving and has been in my car’s CD player ever since. The only disappointment is that the album doesn’t include Nuala’s latest single I’m Alright which is charming and delightfully hooky. If you haven’t heard it yet, seek it out and play it on repeat a few times!

This is The Kit were very entertaining with Kate frequently spending time carefully tuning one instrument before realising she was supposed to be playing a different one, but she had a lovely rapport with the audience and the songs were as delicate and moving as they could be. Keep Going was a highlight, a song which could almost be an anthem for the pandemic age:

“The power in the naming / The story is the telling / Potential in the waiting / Movement is deciding / Forward is the doing / Keep going...”

And for anyone who has lost a loved one in recent times, the tense-shifting refrain of Keep Going took on a new power:

“This love has been ours / This love is ours / This love is still ours...”

Then, at the start of December, I headed over the hills (literally) to South Shropshire where, not far from Ludlow, the village of Bitterley nestles. Bitterley is one of a number of villages in Shropshire and Worcestershire - Alveley, Abberley, Dunley, Astley, Shrawley – that sound like adverbs. It’s tempting to suppose Bitterley got its name because, positioned on the western slopes of Titterstone Clee Hill, it must get bitterly cold in the winter.

Bitterley Village Hall was the venue for an Arts Alive event. Arts Alive promote professional arts and film events in partnership with local people, bringing high quality and affordable entertainment within easy travelling distance of people in Shropshire and Herefordshire. And so it was that I had the privilege of seeing a performance by Alaw, a superb folk trio from Wales. Guitarist Dylan Fowler and fiddler Oli Wilson-Dickson have been playing together for years and are now joined by the exceptional voice of Nia Lynn, who also provides a harmonium accompaniment. Oli is an immensely engaging front-man and the band took the audience on a journey through new and traditional Welsh folk tunes that demonstrate the Welsh tradition is unfairly neglected, compared with Scottish and Irish folk music.

So, from This is the Kit and Nuala Honan in heart of the big city to Alaw, playing over the hills and far away, live music is still out there to be had - and long may it continue. The story is the telling. Keep going.