Daughters of Albion
Folk Britannia, Barbican, London
By Neil Spencer

12th February 2006
The Observer

‘There's nowt as queer as folk,' Eliza Carthy once assured me – a joke, but one making a point about how bizarre and intense ancient songs can feel compared to modern pop. Strangeness and passion were certainly well represented at the Barbican's three-day folk festival last weekend. Friday's assemblage of female voices, under the banner of ‘Daughters of Albion', took us from lovers' beds to haunted moors and murderous riverbanks, from the 17th century to the 21st.

It was an exhilarating journey. Old favourites included Ewan McColl's ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face', sung with tremulous delicacy by a momentously pregnant Kathryn Williams, and ‘Reynardine' by Sheila Chandra, who changed the lyrics of this sacred text (too scary, apparently) but not its eerie atmosphere. Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson did a mum'n'daughter duo on Tom Waits's ‘Strange Weather' and Lou Rhodes, looking like an Edwardian princess at play and a star in the ascendant, dealt with PJ Harvey's murder ballad ‘Down by the Water'.

Also prowling the dark side was June Tabor, whose rendition of  ‘Fair Margaret and Sweet William', a ballad that goes back to Shakespeare's day, was as intense as its blood-soaked lyrics demand. That the shifts of singer, era and mood were so seamless owed much to the faultless playing of the 10-piece band and the ingenious arrangements of Kate St John, which encompassed reeds, brass and even bowed saw.