With all those instruments available, they’ve only needed to call in one guest, Ben Nicholls, adding double bass on three tracks. Between the two of them, they play mandolin, tenor guitar, harmonium, piano, acoustic guitar, bouzouki and fiddle. Whilst the vocals may take centre stage, the instrumental arrangements are equally well-matched to the songs. Add the harmonies achieved from the pairing of their voices, and the listener is transported to vocal heaven. First and foremost, these are songs with a story to tell, and the clarity of Janice and Jon’s individual voices ensures, first and foremost, those stories are heard. As you might expect from musicians in their early twenties, they don’t approach traditional songs as if they were precious museum pieces, but equally, their arrangements are as far removed from twenty-first-century folk-rock as you could imagine.
With Janice hailing from Glasgow and Jon from Gloucestershire, they were already familiar with two strong traditions from which to draw material but, as No More the Green Hills shows, they’ve subsequently cast their net wider, incorporating Irish and North American sources. They met whilst studying on the folk and traditional music course at Newcastle University, drawn into performing together through a shared passion for traditional songs. At the heart of their music lies a gentleness and a deceptive simplicity, generating songs with a sound that wraps around you like a warm blanket, though some have lyrics disturbing enough to disrupt that idyll.
The release of an EP in 2020 raised high expectations for their debut album, and No More the Green Hillsfulfils all of them and more. Since starting to perform as a duo in 2017, Janice Burns and Jon Doran have achieved much to be proud of, including appearances at major festivals, including Edinburgh Tradfest, Sidmouth, and Cambridge, and winning a “Danny” at 2021’s Celtic Connections.
0 kommentar(er)
