bellowhead

The past six years have seen Bellowhead progress from being a band whose main intention was to ‘have fun at festivals’ to recording two acclaimed, ground-breaking albums (Burlesque, Matachin), performing at the BBC Proms in front of 40,000, appearing on everything from BBC Four to BBC Breakfast TV and everywhere from Truck, to the Big Chill, Glastonbury, Sidmouth and Cambridge Folk Festivals. Following in the footsteps of chart-toppers, St Etienne, Bellowhead have become Band in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre. They have also been voted Best Live Act at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards an unparalleled four times. And that’s not including the DVD release (‘Live At Shepherd’s Bush Empire’), plus major UK and North American Tours.



Now we have a glorious third studio album, Hedonism, produced by the legendary John Leckie (Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Rodrigo y Gabriela) recorded at Abbey Road and due for release by Navigator on October 4th 2010. A full UK tour beginning at the Bristol Old Vic on 11th November (also including dates at The Sage - 15th Nov and Shepherds Bush Empire - 20th Nov) - will follow.



Formed in 2004 by renowned duo John Spiers (melodeon, concertina) and Jon Boden (vocals, fiddle), whilst stuck in a traffic jam, this 11-piece big band, comprising friends and friends of friends, fuses a dazzling amount of individual musical talent into something truly original and invigorating. With fellow band-members Pete Flood (percussion); Justin Thurgur (trombone); Brendan Kelly (saxophone, bass clarinet); Andy Mellon (trumpet); Paul Sartin (oboe, fiddle); Rachael McShane (cello, fiddle); Ed Neuhauser (helicon, tuba); Benji Kirkpatrick (guitar, mandolin, bouzouki) and Sam Sweeney (fiddle, pipes) Bellowhead honour centuries of English musical tradition while at the same time creating a unique sound, teaming with boundary crossing appeal.



On Hedonism, the music is still a delirious amalgam of schooled musicianship and uproarious, anarchic abandon. However, working with John Leckie and recording at Abbey Road Studios (using John Lennon’s microphone), the band have been able to embellish their music-hall tinged, traditional English core with the scale of Arcade Fire and the unsparing, bittersweet worldview of Jacques Brel - all served with a sprinkling of skewed humour.



Musically, Hedonism is a heady mix and not for the faint-hearted. The seventeenth century English folk standard ‘A Begging I Will Go’ is dragged thrillingly into the modern age, its ancient roots mixed with echoes of ska, Isaac Hayes’ ‘Theme From Shaft’ and a Louisiana jug band. Elsewhere, there’s the grubby dockside poetry of Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’ and the venerable Child Ballad, ‘Cold Blows the Wind’, where sublime brass creates an atmosphere of ecstatic mourning. Taken from a collection of songs by AL Lloyd, ‘The Hand Weaver’ provides a refreshingly tough female central character, while the deranged, throwing-out time, Barbershop-punk-folk version of ‘Little Sally Rackets’ is inspired by a bootleg recording of the Young Tradition in a 60s folk club. ‘Broomfield Hill’ tells a tale closely related to the ‘outlandish knight’ stories depicted in cave drawings: the tune is from ‘Bogie’s Bonny Belle’ and features English bagpipes, while the chorus is borrowed from a verse in a Robin Hood ballad. ‘New York Girls’ has equally fascinating origins: a raucous polka that somewhere along the line boarded a ship, acquired ‘forebitter’ lyrics and became a sea-shanty.



It all adds up to a truly compelling album. Punctuated with galloping instrumentals and on occasion, a sound akin to breezy acoustic pop, a bawdy joie de vivre runs through Hedonism, something that those lucky enough to have witnessed the band live will recognise. Although this is a Bellowhead album through and through, the influence of John Leckie is apparent. There is a real sense that Hedonism is a landmark achievement in the band’s history and one that captures the dynamism and energy of one of the UK’s finest live bands, regardless of genre.