The English Acoustic Collective takes the not unreasonable approach in Ghosts that the music of the present is built on the music of the past. In their own work, this means that not only must the contemporary audience be satisfied, but the ghosts of those musicians who created the music, and who passed it along to them, are watching.

The English Acoustic Collective is John Dipper on violin, Robert Harbron on concertina and bassoon, and Chris Wood on violin, viola and vocals. I must confess that it took a bit of listening before I got used to Wood's voice, and the first couple of vocal tracks were a little bit of a jar, but things soon evened out. By "The Colour of Amber" I was a convert; although at first seeming slightly nasal and rather uninflected, it does develop resonance and expressiveness, and it suits the material perfectly. This song was taken from Tony Engle's The Voice of the People and is an extraordinarily sophisticated bit of music. "Bonnets of Blue" comes from the Morris tradition, with additional music by the group, and has the lilt and momentum of the best English dances, with some interesting variations. It segues seamlessly into the "Kennington Jig."

I don't know if the ghosts of music past are satisfied, but I was. The trio brings to their debut CD a very strong tradition of their own in research, performance, composition and teaching along with a very high degree of musicianship. A mix of trad tunes, sometimes with new arrangements, sometimes edited and altered, along with music composed by the performers themselves, Ghosts is a very welcome, low-key collection of English "traditional" music in the best sense -- strong roots, but still very much alive.

by Robert M. Tilendis
Rambles.NET
31 December 2005

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