'Low Culture' by Jim Moray
7 August 2008Jim Moray is one of the young stars of the current English folk music revival. I enjoyed his 2003 debut album, ‘Sweet England’: armed with his fine folk voice and a laptop computer he reinterpreted some of the best known traditional songs in a very modern way. What seemed like the natural reaction of someone from a generation that grew up with rock and pop provoked some controversy amongst folk ‘purists’. In his new album, ‘Low Culture’, Jim Moray takes this approach further, including electronic beats, rock drums and a rapper. But coming after some of the pillars of the folk establishment entered similar territory in The Imagined Village (reviewed here in August 2007) the shock value has diminished and Moray can be appreciated for his honest attempt to make traditional music relevant today. ‘Low Culture’ is a more varied and interesting album. It features an eclectic mix of styles and instrumentation – including strings and brass that make some tracks sound remarkably like Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006). Moray includes the song ‘Three Black Feathers’ by Bella Hardy (reviewed here in March 2008) – fast becoming a modern folk classic. And having made traditional folk songs sound like rock music, he stunningly reverses the trick with a re-interpretation of XTC’s ‘All You Pretty Girls’ which transforms Andy Partridge’s pop classic into a centuries-old sea shanty – joyous, rhythmic and incredibly catchy, I can’t get it out of my head.
posted by Robin Simpson @ 2:09 pm
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