Octo_Russ

Eliza Carthy [Rice]

This is the first Folk disc in my Blog, yes i listen to Folk too, but my discs in this genre are slim, i have 13 Folk albums, very meagre, i hope to change that in the future.

Eliza Carthy is an English Folk Artist, she is now 35, she roughly has eight solo albums in her catalogue, she made this album roughly 12 years ago, it was originally issued as a double disc called 'Red Rice', but has been issued separately, the photographs on the front of these two discs are fantastic [by Tom Howard], with Eliza lying on a bed of rice, with bright red hair in curls, it's a great idea and pic, with the lettering small, it still stands out, i also like the graphics on the back, a nice track listing.

Half the album is made up of instrumental tracks [reels and jigs], the other half are vocal songs, on this listen track 5 'Herring Song' really impressed, with a nice off kilter lop sided beat to the instrumental intro, the vocals almost seem to be a tongue twister, quite repetitive, Eliza Carthy plays the fiddle, and Saul Rose plays the melodeon amongst others, it's a lovely bouncing tune, that constantly swings to and fro from vocal to instrumental, the fiddle gives it a lovely old world feel.

I'm not so wowed by the instrumental tracks, and this certainly isn't one of my cherished albums, but i like this, and it touches a musical nerve.

Here's Eliza Carthy singing Herring Song on We7.