Post Description

British folk, traditional folk, rock.

Recorded at the illustrious Abbey Road Studios, Jim Moray’s self-produced ‘Beflean: An Alternative History 2002-2023‘ offers up what Moray dubs “an alternative history” of his twenty years of music making. This feast for the ears builds on his previous compilation album, A Beginner’s Guide, released in 2010 in celebration of his first decade as a recording artist, and delights us not only with thoughtful reimaginings of old favourites but also some brilliant previously unrecorded gems.

I’ll begin with a confession: the announcement of this album made me nervous. It is always a risk to record reworked versions of so many beloved tracks, and the fear is that they will have transformed beyond all recognition, losing the essence of what made them successful. Beflean assuaged all of my reservations, immediately and entirely. Moray – previously described by Folk Radio as having “become an accepted part of folk music royalty” – has cherry-picked some of his finest work from across his twenty-year discography, packaging it up into a single, delightful bundle for longtime and new fans alike.

Fittingly, and just like Moray’s career, the album kicks off with the haunting Lemady, the first track of Moray’s first – and now extremely, frustratingly elusive – 2001 EP, I Am Jim Moray. This creatively reinvented track still maintains all of the best features of its original iteration, including Moray’s hallmark voice looping. It is immediately striking that, although significantly matured, Moray’s voice has not lost even a fragment of that exceptional quality that helped him to win the coveted Horizon Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards way back in 2004.

Speaking of Folk Awards, no Jim Moray compilation album would be complete without the somewhat legendary Lord Douglas, perhaps the most successful and well-known of his many adaptations of Child Ballads and a firm favourite of guitarists up and down the land. The track won Moray yet another BBC Radio 2 Folk Award – for Best Traditional Track – in 2013. This new version has the welcome addition of stunning backing vocals from multi-instrumentalist and academic Angeline Morrison, whose impressive career culminated in an appearance on Later with Jools Holland in 2022 following the release of her highly acclaimed album The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs Of Black British Experience (No. 1 in Folk Radio’s Top 100 albums of 2022). The two voices blend perfectly to tell one of several stories of ill-fated lovers offered up by the album, with renowned guitarist B.J. Cole providing masterful accompaniment on his beloved pedal steel guitar.

Other standout traditional tracks include Fair Margaret and Sweet William’ one of the finest songs from Upcetera (2016), and Lord Ellenwater, taken from Moray’s latest album, The Outlander (2019), and featuring the talented Tom Moore on strings. Both of these tracks represent perhaps the most impressive element of this record: although supported by a whole host of exceptionally gifted musicians, including several huge names, Moray takes full responsibility for a significant proportion of the instrumental accompaniment on the album, as well, of course, as vocals throughout. At various points, he can be found playing acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitars, the double bass, the drum machine, percussion of various kinds, the banjo, the bouzouki, and the Hofner Bass, to name just a few instruments. Often, he plays several of these at once without any outside support. Beflean hammers home the extent of the wide-ranging talent and self-sufficiency of an artist who not only has one of the very finest voices on the English folk scene but is also an astonishing and often self-taught, multi-instrumentalist, deeply passionate about the intricacies of, and possibilities presented by, the many different instruments he has mastered.

Another particularly impressive aspect of the album is the breadth of Moray’s coverage of his discography; only one of his eight full-length albums – Low Culture (2008) – does not feature. He even takes the listener deep into his tricky second album, Jim Moray (2006), one which, despite its numerous strengths and qualities, he has always shied away from playing, discussing, and even selling. Dog and Gun has been thoughtfully reworked, with Archie Churchill-Moss’ diatonic accordion accompanying Moray on vocals and guitar, double bass, and percussion. Moving to another brilliant and oft-neglected record, In Modern History (2010), Moray delights us with a new rendition of the Child Ballad-based Long Lankin, a firm favourite of fans at live shows throughout the decades, despite the song’s dark themes and murderous storyline. Alongside his exquisite and somewhat more uplifting original track, Sounds of Earth, which is based on the intertwined love story and scientific endeavours of Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan, who sent the Golden Record into space in 1977, this is perhaps the pinnacle of the album. Together, these tracks illustrate that Moray’s talent lies not only in writing outstanding new tunes for old stories but also in telling new stories with just as much power, raw emotion, and musical ingenuity.

It is particularly refreshing to hear some previously unrecorded material from Moray amidst the old favourites. This includes Jim Jones of Botany Bay, a lively traditional track recorded earlier by the esteemed Martin Carthy and featuring Cumbria’s very own Jamie Francis on the five-string banjo. An instrumental interlude at the heart of the album comes in the form of The Vandals Of Hammerwich/ Ring Of Bells, two energetic Morris dance tunes from Moray’s home county, Staffordshire. What a treat to hear not only Jude Rees on bagpipes and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne on concertina but also beloved Bellowhead frontman Jon Boden on fiddle, who also plays on a reimagining of Skulk’s Hind Etin (2012). I also thoroughly appreciated the inclusion of Tyne of Harrow from Salvor (2015), the first of two False Lights albums, since the group, in which Moray sings lead vocals alongside Sam Carter, has undoubtedly been a formative and conspicuous part of Moray’s twenty-year career thus far.

The closing track is Lord Bateman, the “Lord song” to end all “Lord songs” (indeed, Moray has previously joked about making an EP – or would that be an LP – of them all…). It is the only song on the album that is barely recognisable from its original form, a bold choice for one of his undoubtedly most beloved tracks from Sweet England (2002) and, indeed, his whole twenty-year career. This extended version, which runs for over seven minutes, reveals new insights into the story we know and love, although luckily, we still get the (admittedly un-folk-esque) happy ending we’re all rooting for. It also features the unique and stirring sound of the Duduk and Ney, played by popular Turkish musician Murat Savaş. For me, the version of Lord Bateman we hear on A Beginner’s Guide does remain superior, and it would be a shame if it were to be indefinitely replaced in future live shows. This being said, when the track is viewed in its own right, free from any such comparisons, this is a musically exceptional reimagining testament to Moray’s unmatched innovativeness, which pays no heed to any pre-conceived limits on creativity. Moray does as he always has, constantly testing the boundaries of folk and traditional music and finding them to be malleable in his hands. In this sense, Lord Bateman comes to epitomise the very essence of Beflean; it simultaneously represents both a celebration of past success and an exciting new departure, leaving us to wonder what creative ventures he has up his sleeve for us next. 

Tracks:
01. Lemady
02. Fair Margaret And Sweet William
03. Tyne Of Harrow
04. Dog And Gun
05. Hind Etin
06. Lord Douglas
07. The Vandals Of HammerwichRing Of Bells
08. Jim Jones In Botany Bay
09. Sounds Of Earth
10. Lord Ellenwater
11. Long Lankin
12. Lord Bateman

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zvZ0b6Qo1s