Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Matachin, 24 Sep 2008
Fun, lively, sinister; pure Bellowhead. This is a wonderful album that really shows how the band has developed since Burlesque. Burlesque was good, but at times it felt like 'the Spiers and Boden band' rather than showing Bellowhead up in all its glory. Matachin rectifies this in style. The arrangements are well thought out and the ensemble is top notch, and full of the band's trademark quirkiness. I challenge you to keep still!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A burlesque collision between a folk band and a big band , 11 Nov 2008
The excellent CD booklet that comes with this CD informs us that the name Matachin is enigmatic and of uncertain origin .Originally thought to be Arabic and derived from the word mutawajjihin meaning "mask-wearer" though now it is considered to derive from the Italian mattaccino the diminutive of the meaning matto -mad or fool. This is more apt for this 11 piece band have a certain barmy frisson . There is also a hypothesis that the name comes from an old Spanish sword dance ! This album could make you dance though I suspect it will make your head spin and your knees pop out of their sockets if you do .
Bellowhead are for the uninitiated, which until listening to Matachin I was, like a burlesque collision between a folk band and a big band . The music is expansive and fervently expressive with cello, fiddle, violin, trumpet , trombone, oboe, pipes, mandolin, banjo , concertina and avid percussion. There are elements of jazz, music hall , cabaret, mariachi , traditional folk and it's all done with a playful vigour that doesn't subtract from the wonderfully individual performances.
That booklet also helpfully explains the origin of each song excluding the three short instrumental vignettes dubbed helpfully Vignette one , two , three. To be honest the album wouldn't lose anything if these hadn't been included. However the same cannot be said of tracks like "Widows Curse" a traditional song arranged by Pete Flood with emphatic burgeoning strings and a terrific twittering oboe. Or of "Kafoozalum/The Priests Miss" which again is a trad song arranged by the band and is so completely barmy it would make Jeremy Paxman jig. "Roll Her Down The Bay " a shanty arranged by Pete Flood seems a touch incoherent and slapdash but is actually cleverly arranged .
What is also noticeable is the way the band can cleverly arrange a song to match it's subject matter. The way that Kipling's 1896 poem "Cholera Camp" has wheezy sounding horns or the unearthly trumpet on "Spectre Review" or the woozy but rambunctious "Whiskey Is The Life Of Man" .Then by way of contrast opening track "Fakenham Fair" is more gracious and mannered and the head spinning cello/accordion on "Trip To Bucharest" segueing into "The Flight Of The Folk Mutants Parts 1 & 2" is just a giddy joy.
The vocals by Jon Bodem occasionally struggle to match the intensity and virtuosity of the songs and it made me wonder just how special this band could be if they had a vocalist as unique and powerful as Devotchka .s Nick Urata. None the less in a great year for albums Matachin is another to add to the list. Splendidly singular stuff.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the unique, thoroughly live, irrepressible and irreplaceable Bellowhead, 29 Oct 2008
If you have an ear each side of your head rather than a collection of labels, prejudices and musical anxieties, if your spirit is actually moved by music, if you got (any) rhythm, if you've heard/seen them live or haven't and wish their tour schedule was wider and longer, if ... hang on. Why are you still reading this? Try a few sample bits off iTunes or whatever and then buy the CD. You'll see it's not "just" folk yet grows from the tradition, and it doesn't mess folk up merely to be trendy. It's music with bottom and also plenty of top, bursting at the seams yet carefully considered and controlled, it tells stories but it doesn't ramble on with its finger in its ear, it can fight you and it can soothe you, it's highly entertaining and unexpected, it has real integrity it's...unique.
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