Not long ago, when The Set of the Sail arrived as one disc in a fat package from Rambles.NET, I learned -- if I'm counting right -- that this is William Pint & Felicia Dale's ninth album. I had barely heard of them, and "barely" may be stretching the point. As I hastily endeavored to educate myself, I discovered that -- as it turns out -- I had heard Pint in the folk group Morrigan, which released an album on Folkways in 1980. Though I've never heard the record itself, two cuts from it are revived on the anthology Classic Maritime Music from Smithsonian Folkways (2004).

I like to think that not much worth hearing in the way of rooted music gets past me, but I'm always proved wrong, and I am nearly always pleased to be so reminded of my obliviousness. Set happens to be one riveting, thrillingly accomplished recording. As they say, late is better than never. Also rather incredibly to me -- from a business, not an artistic, perspective -- Pint & Dale specialize in seafaring music, which even during the 1960s folk scare engendered few artists or groups committed to it to the exclusion of other genres. Pint & Dale, however, have been at it for years, all but taking up residence on the road as they carry their music all over North America and Europe.

If you didn't know they are Americans who live, at least nominally, in Seattle, you'd think they were English, given the unmistakable influence the English revival (including, prominently, the current one) has on their sound. That means arrangements that are more extrapolations of tradition than traditional in themselves, and applied to the sorts of arcane material that one can't ordinarily learn simply by stealing from one's contemporaries' records, even when those contemporaries are also serious tradition purveyors. (That further means you won't hear "Haul Away, Joe" or "Santy Anno" here. Not that there's anything wrong with either, of course.) On the uncommon occasion that a song is familiar, as with the well-known "Handsome Cabin Boy," Pint & Dale unearth an out-of-the-ordinary melody and set of lyrics. "Cabin Boy" is sung unaccompanied, but most of the other material is arranged with instruments, from relatively skeletal settings to the unequivocally full-bodied.

In the latter instance the result is a sophisticated folk-chamber approach broadly reminiscent more of an acoustic Steeleye Span than of a neo-Celtic band -- though Dale's hurdy-gurdy on several cuts takes the sound into places where even the adventurous Steeleye has not gone. Along with the just-mentioned, Dale contributes vocals, fiddle, whistles and bodhran, Pint vocals, guitar and octave mandolin, joined by Dan Mohler (electric bass), Steve Peterson (drums) and -- on one cut, "The Dreadnaught" -- Tania Opland (fiddle).

All but three of the songs are traditional. "Tom Bowling," however, is counted among the nontraditional only because the composer, Charles Didbin (1745-1814), is known; still, his song has been around longer than many traditionals. The two modern compositions -- Linda Kelly's "Northern Tide" and John Conolly's "The Trawling Trade" -- are pretty much indistinguishable from the more timeworn material. The song choices, all impeccably selected, range from ballads to chanteys to instrumental pieces, and close satisfyingly with the stirring "Adieu les filles de mon pays."

[ visit the artist's website ]