Q: What’s big and bandy, and full of gigs? Clue: Turnstone is their new touchstone. A: Gigspanner Big Band!

Release Date : 11th April 2025

Label : Self-Released

Format : CD / digital

So damn good

It may seem a minor point, but this is actually the first release by Gigspanner Big Band, all previous, as well as those by the more compact three-piece, having been from Peter Knight’s Gigspanner etc. Of course the lofty ex-Steeleye man is still present, but, by now, surely the points are that a) everyone knows that, after 16 years of maintaining the soubriquet, and b) the rest of the band(s) are themselves just so damn good, too.

So, for those who may have strayed over from one of our metal reviews, Gigspanner, the trio of Knight, Roger Flack and Sacha Trochet, become the Big Band when joined by John Spiers and by the duo of Edgelarks, namely Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin. And, given the proficiency of musicianship, that sextet can handle fiddles, guitars, lap slide, banjo, harmonica, squeezebox, bass and drums, Big Band equals big sound, especially when you include all the singing.

As ever, the set is a mix of the tradition and anything else the accomplished membership can slip into it, with, no change there, little regard for genre or style, all embraced from, probably, six hundred years, and counting, of influence. All the members bring their collective gifts and choices to the table, building together a complex scaffolding to best show off the collective eclecticism. Add in that the skeleton of this recording was first captured live, the studio then a retreat to add further polish and charm, and it all feels pretty remarkable, touchstone maybe more than turnstone. ( A small maritime bird, should you ask.)

Fiddling and honking

Child ballad 272, Suffolk Miracle, gets the stones skimming, with Martin intoning the opening stanza over what sounds like low pitched pizzicato strings. But this is no Moray maudlinfest Miracle, as the band hurtle in, Spiers’ melodeon to the fore, and get you on your feet, fiddles and harmonica hoeing down behind her voice. Both Martin and Knight are fiddling, and Henry honking, as Trochet beats an insistent patter on hand drums. A short burst of acapella grouped vocal heralds the end, before a sweeping coda, where that familiarity of tone, that Knight alone can find in a fiddle, breaks through. Houston, we’re safe!

Sovay is just the sort of song his old band should have done, with more orthodox pizzicato opening the harmony singing of Knight and Martin, discreet twangs of Henry’s lap slide adding midwestern colour. Come the instrumental theme, it is quite an orchestral flourish, repeating with a build of layers. replete with a slow rhythmic chug from Flack on electric guitar. Before you know it, he then rips out an incendiary solo that cuts through the fiddlestraganza with passion. Silver Dagger then toddles in on a bed of banjo and slide, Martin once more on lead vocal, with her atmospheric contralto. A song first noted down in Appalachia, and covered, in 1960, by Joan Baez, here it is imbued with a far more ancient lineage, matching both an earlier anglo-celt origin with added hillbilly moonshine. It is wonderful.

arabian highlands?

Two together up next, as What Wondrous Love This Is gets paired with Sweet Highland Mary, the first lurching in with a foreboding unison drone over what I always call a Mattacks drum pattern, if pitched with a less resonant thump. Bass guitar plays the same theme as the melodeon and fiddles, with sideways twangs emanating from Henry. The vocals start with Knight, becoming unison, a something wicked this way comes chant, ahead an eerie swerve into the second tune, sounding, at first, more the highlands of Arabia, should there actually be any. Eventually it becomes the sort of sustaining lilt this Robert Burns composition might usually suggest, as fiddles duet. And is that a cello in the mix, too? (Ed. Probably viola.)

The longest single piece here, When Fortune Turns The Wheel, comes in at a second under nine minutes, and is a free-form and slo-mo extemporisation with strings, all participants watching to see which way it goes, or at least until Martin picks out the vocal melody. Juddery and skittery backing adds skeletal accompaniment. Time enough and abstract enough for a wallow in the soundscape, letting thoughts fly away. Think A Sailor’s Life with Jean-Luc Ponty.

This allows The Rolling Of The Stones to then go all back weird on you. Or should that be wyrd, as Spiers takes up the tale, the sound all of a pagan carol, banjo slow-dancing with the paired fiddles. (If not yet prompted, it is the paired fiddles, violin with viola, that are fast becoming a recurring theme here, however much the other instruments try to wrest that reality, with that trying being much of the overall draw.)

a bounce around the houses

Basket Of Eggs, in any of its many guises, tells a well traveled tale, and I am sure we have all made the same mistake with our groceries. Again with Martin singing, the band garnish it with some curveballs of slide and electric guitars, before all fire up for a conclusion in unison. drums all a’clatter. Betsy Rowlands is another staple of trad.arr. that is hefted with Moorishness, largely courtesy the tabla-esque drums and revolving guitar pattern, the tune then offering a spectre of Matty Groves/Shady Grove as it unfolds, even down to the faster fiddle showdown which eats up the second half. Hind Horn is altogether more relaxed, pivoting on the west meets east of Henry’s curveball stringplay. Martin sings once more, but it is as the rest of the band echo her lines that this becomes at its most effective.

Hard Times Come No More is one of those songs that always sound as old as the hills, but, at a mere 125 years old, and from the prolific Stephen Foster (O, Susanna, Camptown Races.) Given that transatlantic origin, it is given all due twang, even if the vocal torch of Knight is pure anglo, he then adding a long mournful fiddle coda to eke out every drop of sentiment. (And, is it me, but isn’t it the same tune, or near enough, as Hard Times Of Old England, covered both by Knight in Steeleye Span and on GBB’s live album?)

However, so as not to leave the listener weeping, Knight tacks on the only entirely new composition of the album, Arthur Peter’s Reel, a tune for his great nephew. It is lively and sparkly , with Trochet at his patacake best, as the fiddle drives a circuitous bounce around the houses.

overboard, fiddle to the fore

Already over the hour, there is one final track on this near both sides of a C90 bothering release, not that it has ever felt a chore to hang on in there. Knight knows well how to keep a rousing medley to last, and this is no exception, with a triad of Northern Frisk, Red Haired Boy and Moth From Upstairs, together sounding like a question from Round Britain Quiz. Mélanging a variety of styles together, melodeon flies over a vaguely ominous bass, as metronomic drums push it forward, the odd howl of guitar or fiddle for good measure. Whistle test harmonica then ups the ante, as the gears drive harder into a hornpipe, the fiddles on fire. Heck, there’s even a drum solo, minimalist but efficient, bass footprinting out the steps until Knight leaps overboard, fiddle to the fore.

With the atypical drumming this is folk-rock without the rock but still plenty of roll. As it sways to a close, each member of the band throws in their subject signatures, including, yes, even more solo drums, this time more complex and ear-catching. Maybe just a tad too long, but I know he’ll love doing this live, when any such thought would be anaethema. (And the live audience, remember, here they are included, their applause duly proving that point!)

today’s bees…

Like Richard Thompson live versus Richard Thompson electric, trying to favour Gigspanner Big Band over Trio is always problematic, the better being usually the one in front of you at any one time. So, if you can disregard any earlier opinion, Big Band are deffo the bee’s today, and this album will and should keep that thought held high. At least until the next slimmed down offering.

No new to view as yet, but Daddy Fox, from a couple of years ago, gives a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Stones to turn

A new album usually means a new tour, right? Right!

Gigspanner(s) online: Website / Facebook /X /Instagram / Bluesky

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