Jim Moray

It's a rainy night in Exeter as we make our way into The Phoenix for tonight's intimate showcase by Jim Moray. The venue is usally a dark standing room only area but tonight there is seating for around 180 in place. The lighting illuminates the performance space which has drums, guitars, blinking laptops, accordion, fiddle, piano and keyboards in green and blue.

The seating is by no means full, and there's a varied age range from young girlie student types, to middle aged couples and old gnarled looking folk aficionados.

Jim walks in says his hellos, seats himself at the piano and opens with 'Poverty Knock' before standing and donning a guitar for 'Raggle-Taggle Gypsies' a tune he learnt at school "mixing love, infidelity, and casual racism." Both tunes are well delivered but I find Jim's hard sounding forced meter on both instruments make each song less gentle.

The hard strikes continue on guitar for 'Fair Sally', which although still a traditional composition, Jim introduces it with a modern allegory of pizza, cinema and young love. Jim returns to the piano for 'Gilderoy' a song which Jim says was first tried live in Exeter some years ago.

Jim then introduces Jamie Delarre from Mawkin to play fiddle with him, and the additional instrument means Jim relaxes his traditional beat which he adds to the music, softening its hard edge. Jim explains the next song's history, an attempt to outwrite his contemporaries including Jim Causley from Exeter with a rude folk song, 'Black Joak' ended up on a various artists 'Morris' series album. The fiddle really adds a greater dimension to the music and there's more of a reels feel to the music.

Seing Jim Moray is a history lesson in folk music as well as a gig, and the ghost story of 'Three Black Feathers' from the Peak Districts and the Copper Family collection are all explained with 'Spencer the Rover' and these traditional stories have a timeless quality, Jim's earlier allegory with 'Sally' and pizza shows us how the circumstances change but the human condition remains and this story of a man walking out on his family could have been written at any time.

Eliza Carthy's own 'Kingston Girls' gets an airing along with 'My First Hornpipe' and the fiddle and guitar. Old school folk is played at pace by this new generation of folk artists, who end the medley with a frenetic blur of old school dance music.

A bit of jumping Brampton Morris with 'The Wild Boar' and a quick tale of Jamie's car boot head accident concludes the set. Overall I've preferred the tunes he did with fiddler Jamie to his solo work, but I look forward to the second half where Jim will have a full band around him.

Half an hour later we return to our seats for another hour of Jim Moray, who is seated at the piano. Joining him on the keyboards is Benjamin Brunel who has joined Jim for the tour, adding his distinct Victoriana blend subtly to the proceedings. Jamie has returned on fiddle and Laurence Hunt from Jim Moray's original 4 is still perfectly on the beat in front of the drum kit.

The songs are still old and timeless but suddenly the music is bang up to date, 'Night Visiting' was collected from Cecilia Costello and was original called 'Grey Cock'. A new song from the forthcoming 'Low culture' album released on July 14th. Watching this two format set you can't help but think of Dylan when he went electric and the effect he had on the music, watching Jim play electric guitar must be similar there's a sudden thrill of hearing these songs in a new setting.

There's electronic xylophone, a rapid dance music beat, Jim and effects on electric guitar, and a swelling full sound, electronic cries and fiddle as we leave Australia. It's incredibly impressive, and 'Barbara Allen' adds electric squeeze box and more clever instrumentation.

Layered percussion and fiddle crash in bringing these old songs bang up to date, it's Massive Attack meets folk. 'Sweet England' has electronic duplication, musical static, synth work, and a very layered sound, it's a real musical treat and here that Jim shows just how cleverly they've created 'modern' folk music.

Last year Jim was working new songs at the RNCM in Manchester working on a cylinder wax record made by Percy Grainger of Joseph taylor whilst in his seventies, and became the first ever commercial folk recording, called 'Authentic Songs of Peasant Folk Singers' and 'The Rufford Park Poachers' is the result, it's actually got an air of timelessness about it and the emotional synths add to the feeling.

Accordian, Benjamin Brunel in full flight, and audience participation is all part of the almost jazz swing lurching knees up of 'All You Pretty Girls' and the side show/promenade influence of Ben appears to have positive influences of Jim's music.

Just as I'm thinking this Jim returns, for a solo encore, returning to his miserable, derelict, sad, broken, and morose themes which are the tolls of a folk troubadour taking requests, including 'Lord Bateman', and 'Looking for Lucy' and again he's come full circle to the harsh playing style and the sharp beats - I guess it's traditional music playing but it rather takes the song away from the delicate harmonies.

Although I liked the traditional solo stuff, I feel Jim is rather ordinary as a soloist, I'd love to see him duet with another of his contempories re-writing the folk scene - Seth Lakeman as Jim and Jamie's duo performance was terrific. However, with a full band Jim really shines, the music is given whole new dimensions, and layered traditional styles, it excites, the band and Jim are greater than the sum of their parts.

The traditional songs have a new vibrancy and Jim has more energy amongst a modern setting. I hope Jim keeps all the current parts of the band in place for a while, Laurence's drumming is superbly tight, Ben adds a new flavour to the sound, and Jamie's fiddle add depth, I'm looking forward to Jim's new album, hopefully it will be the record to propel Jim to where his promise has alluded to for some years now and turns him into such a popular folk name, that next time he plays here it's a full house.

FUTURE GIGS