Yorkston Thorne Khan
Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars
Domino Records
A GLOBE- and form-spanning traditional music supergroup, Yorkston Thorne Khan are Fife singer-songwriter and former Fence Collective mainstay James Yorkston, Isle of Wight-based jazz bassist Jon Thorne, and New Delhi sarangi meastro Suhail Yusuf Khan. This second album from them is the follow-up to last year's acclaimed Everything Sacred.
False True Piya is indicative of their fusion approach. A phantasmagorical love song written by Khan with lyrics mostly in Hindi, it opens with Yorkston singing a snippet from similarly-themed folk song The Daemon Lover, and then mutates into a droning, driving six minute epic in which Khan's sarangi – a bowed string instrument – is given star billing. Elsewhere Yorkston dips into his own back catalogue for a version of the affecting The Blues You Sang (from 2014's The Cellardyke Recording And Wassailing Society) and Thorne takes on vocal duties for the back half of medley Samat Saraang/Just A Bloke.
The jazzy, instrumental 15 minute Halleluwah strays into Pentangle territory – no bad thing – and The Blue Of The Thistle, played on what sounds like a pub piano, offers a change of pace if not perhaps mood: Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars is reflective and defiantly downbeat pretty much from start to finish. Again, no bad thing. Once more, this unusual trio has blended Indian and British folk sounds to create something fresh and utterly compelling.
Barry Didcock
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