FOLK
Spiers, he of the rampaging accordion and the small one in the
Spiers & Boden partnership that first started lighting up the UK
folk scene with their Through & Through album in 2001. “The
closest we ever get to having a fight in the band is trying to think
of album titles – people seem to place much importance on these
things. Matachin is a traditional sword dance that comes from
the Spanish in South America. We liked it because it’s a word
that looks like it hasn’t been used before but actually represents
something. It’s traditional but slightly…dangerous. That idea
appeals to us.”
If Bellowhead’s 2006 debut album Burlesque caused a rumpus
(a couple of senior denizens from the folk world were particularly
affronted by their knockabout Tom Waits approach to the
traditional song Flash Company) there’s likely to be a few more
explosions as they go for broke on the new one. “A magnificently
murky and rum-sodden collection of 11 traditional and original
songs…no whimsical maidens or gentle stories of love gone
wrong, instead you’ll get dragged along on an exhilarating
journey filled with cholera, whiskey, the high seas and the Cold
War…” is how they describe the album themselves and for once
the hyperbole isn’t misplaced.
On Matachin they’ve made the leap from being a bold experiment
– the Spiers & Boden big band hatched up on the M25 – into
a truly democratic band with a million ideas and a long-term
future. Inspirational percussionist Pete Flood, in particular,
plays a pivotal role on some of the darker, more complex and
adventurous arrangements. Spiers’s favourite is Widow’s Curse,
an old broadside which he describes with unnerving relish as
“an absolutely horrible, verbose Dickensian story of twisted evil,
fire and brimstone.” He laughs evilly. “Mind you, Pete’s other
arrangements aren’t light either…there are some very complicated
passages of music but it always ends up sounding pretty mighty.
All the tracks use the entire instrumentation – it’s not easy to
make Bellowhead sound simple.”
With 11 disparately talented and wilful musicians and a communal
desire to challenge themselves and the music, you wonder how
they manage to put it all together so coherently. “It would be
harder if there was an even number in the band,” laughs Spiers.
“Everyone wants the band to be as good as it can be. We all have
strong views, but in the end it comes down to a vote.”
When Bellowhead made their debut at the Oxford Folk Festival
in 2004 nobody – least of all the band themselves – had any
idea how enthusiastically they would be received. “Some people
accused us of being a hype, but there was no hype – we just
thought we’d give it a go and see what happened. Listening back
to recordings of some of those early gigs is a bit embarrassing
– we sound like a school orchestra playing folk music but the
arrangements were so different people were very forgiving and we
certainly improved.”
Spiers has no such reservations about Matachin. “It’s a move
on from album Burlesque. It’s
more band inclusive with more
arrangements from the non-
folk members and because of
that it’s more diverse. It’s a true
fusion of musicians and the
whole thing feels right.”
Colin Irwin
Matachin
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