SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Folk album reviews with Steve Johnson: June 19, 2023
New releases from The Trials of Cato, Rachel Baiman and Megson
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
The Trials of Cato
Got Magog
Self-released
★★★★
SINCE their debut album Hide and Hair in 2018 this Welsh/English folk trio have been making waves on the folk scene winning the Best Album title in the 2019 BBC2 Radio Folk Awards.
Since then, the pandemic intervened as well as a line-up change with mandolin player Polly Bolton replacing Will Addison. Taking the title tune from the mythical giant of the Cambridgeshire chalk hills this new album is an intriguing mix of folklore, history and modern-day reflections of our current times.
Myth and legend are to the fore in When Black Shuck Roams and history in Boudicca AD 60 a paean to the Iceni queen. Ring of Roses is a modern-day plague song following the pandemic and there is also a raucous version of the 17th-century song Bedlam Boys.
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