shewhomust | Folk Rising

We'd booked for last night's show at the Sage under the impression that it was just a fancy title for another of their showcases for the students on the folk degree course - these crop up at intervals through the year, and I suspect their raison d'être is as much to give the students a taste of performance as to wow the public with their talents. Nonetheless, if the quality is mixed, spots tend to be short, so the weaker acts don't outstay their welcome, there's always something worth hearing and the tickets aren't expensive. It turned ou, though, that we were mistaken, Folk Rising is something else.

It seems to be something organised by the EFDSS to help new 'rising' talents find an audience (mostly, if you believe Google, at Cecil Sharp House). So we had three acts each doing a substantial set:.

Bryony Griffith and Will Hampson, up first, have been playing together for the best part of twenty years, so they're not exacttly a new act; and they used to play for the Kingsmen rapper side, so not exactly unknown locally, either. Will plays melodeon, Bryony plays fiddle and sings in a style that's rather too mannered for my taste (I have the same problem with June Tabor, so your mileage may vary). They offer, according to their website, "a distinctive repertoire of dark ballads, chorus songs and dance tunes delivered with good-humoured Yorkshire banter", and I could have done with less of the banter: but I enjoyed the tunes, and their last song, a Cornish song called The Ringers (scroll down for a video which gives the flavour of Bryony and Will's performance), which was new to me.

Horizontal Sunday are three recent graduates from the folk degree - I think we've heard them at one of the concerts I was describing (the name's familiar). Fiddle, melodeon and another fiddle or sometimes harp (played almost as percussion) carefully arranged to create a warm, rich sound that I sank into - and towards the end of the set a couple of pieces that woke me up again. They were never less than easy on the ear, and occasionally more. The good news is that they'll be back at the Sage, playing in the foyer before the Bellowhead gig next month.

We returned from the interval to find Ahab setting up: there seemed to be a lot of them, guitars and drums, very loud. And that's all I've got, really. The first song was all loud guitar strumming, the vocals lost in the mix. but apparently this wasn't intentional, because they adjusted it, and the voices were clearer. But it wasn't interesting, and it was too loud for comfort, and we sneaked out. They'll be back next month, too, opening for Bellowhead - clearly there's something there we're missing.

All in all, though, we felt we'd had our money's worth, and a bonus early night into the bargain; and we'd visited