Somehow it seems vaguely incredible that Leveret are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year. Ten years of three of our greatest musicians making some of the most astonishing English folk music together. Ten years of an almost telepathic connection between Sam Sweeney (fiddle), Andy Cutting (melodeon) and Rob Harbron (concertina). Ten years that you wouldn’t want to have missed for the world.
With Forms, the trio’s sixth album, Leveret, once again, return to the intricate sound world that they’ve always created. You don’t listen to a Leveret album hoping for speaker-toppling histrionics and demented leaping about, instead you open a world that is contemplative and mesmeric, one that celebrates the finely crafted.
So, Forms opens with Boss Hornpipe and, immediately, three sets of hands reach out to cradle you. The swirl of Melodeon, Concertina and Fiddle creating something that almost veers towards the Eastern tradition. There are no words, there never are of course, but the emotional heft is obvious. Filberts only adds to the gentle elegy. Sweeney’s fiddle bobbing and weaving through the tune, emerging then submerging.
There are times when it’s so hard not to concentrate on Sweeney’s violin playing. Where Harbron and Cutting create the atmosphere, Sweeney adds the accents; he adds the colourful poetry to their lyrical, descriptive prose. By the time they reach the glorious, 11-minute set
Woodstock Bower/Alvin’s/Scarlet and Green/Nelson’s Maggot all three are plaiting together, like ribbons around a Maypole, each over-laying the other to create perfect, intricate repeating patterns.
If the opening tunes of Forms are delicate and contemplative so the latter half of the album kicks up the heels and waltzes and jigs to the end. Oh The Days When We Were Young/Young Collins Rant is, obviously, in part incredibly familiar but these are brilliant, timeless tunes for a reason (it’s like listening to a long-ignored Beatles song only to be reminded of their genius). Untitled Waltz/The Derby Hunt may not be as familiar but treads an upbeat slip-jig path. It’s another set with some serious history that sets toes a-tapping. Toes tap again for Mr Lane’s Minuet. It seems astonishing that this is a tune almost 300 years old but can still conjure a need to dance, a need to connect.
Equally, Princess Amelia’s Birthday/A Habit of Hills is a jaunty, celebratory set of jigs that demands movement. In many ways these two tunes are the ones that perfectly sum up this wonderful album. The Princess Amelia in question was the daughter of King George II and was considered “one of the oddest princesses that ever was known; she has ears shut to flattery and her heart open to honesty”. A heart open to honesty? Not just an ancient Princess then, but a ten year old trio of total wonder.
Gavin McNamara
TallFolk 