That’s the thing about this time of year. Things are a bit disappointing. The dry turkey and the house full of plastic rubbish. The mince pies and the marzipan laden cake. Disappointing. Thank goodness then that a proper Christmas came early to Downend Folk Club. And there wasn’t a touch of disappointment in sight.
Firstly Katherine Priddy provided the Christmas stocking. Shining jewels for songs, intricate and delicate guitar parts and a pure, sweet voice. She was the diamond ring under the Christmas tree; beautifully wrapped and utterly unexpected. Surely anyone that professes to a love of Nick Drake and covers Jackson C Frank’s “Blues Run the Game” must be a very good thing. And she was.
The evening belonged to one man though; patron of the Folk Club and folkish genius – Jim Moray. A double BBC Folk Awards winner, he’s been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, is a multi-instrumentalist, has made at least one of the finest albums of all time, is a producer AND makes videos. He almost certainly flies in a reindeer-driven sleigh delivering presents to children once a year too.
In a set that spanned from his ten year old debut, Sweet England, right up to his latest, the incredible False Lights album, Moray didn’t strike a duff note all night. Playing solo with only a guitar or piano for company the old church was mesmerised by songs of death, disappointment, Elizabethan magicians and Greek tragedy. At turns heart wrenching and heart warming Moray was a delight. Everything that he touched turned to gold. Classics like “Lord Douglas” and “Sweet England” were accompanied by thoughtful and expansive stories but it was the slightly more obscure tunes that really stood out.
“The Straight Line and the Curve”, taken from The Elizabethan Sessions album, is a beautiful piano led, self-penned tribute to John Dee, the aforementioned magician. Its complex vocal sitting easily next to a surging melody. Even better was “If it’s True”, taken from the Anais Mitchell opera Hadestown, it is, quite simply, an utterly incredible song. Nestled next to these were two songs from the False Lights album. False Lights are a band featuring Moray and Sam Carter, another alt-folk luminary, and make one hell of a noise. Imagine traditional tunes played with Radiohead’s guitars and it’s still WAY better than that. Salvor will be one of the albums of 2015 and from it Moray played “The Wife of Usher’s Well” and “Tyne of Harrow”. Stripped of the noise that the whole band gives these songs they were still magical.
If Christmas can be a disappointment Jim Moray proved that, once again, the Downend Folk Club is anything but. May the new year brings us just as much wonder.
Gavin McNamara
TallFolk 