But warm comes the summer, with new textures borne in by the breeze; a triumph for the Granny’s Attic trio of CBK, Sansome and Wood.

Release Date: 16th May 2025

Label : Grimdon Records

Format : CD / digital

Not designed by committee

In trying to describe the wonder of Granny’s Attic, the old saying about a camel keeps coming up. You know, the one about a camel being a horse designed by a committee. Which is sort of odd, as these three thoroughbreds are so much of their own creation as to defy anyone else’s invention. Or being stubborn, as it is usually called. How else could three school chums in Worcester so actively concentrate on archaic and usually English folk songs, and, rather than updating and revisioning these tunes for the taste of the day, doing the direct opposite, and actively backdating them, envisioning them as they may first have sounded.

This was 2009, dammit, where any folk revival as there then was was liberally doused with beats and electronica, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and, if nothing else, a rhythm section and thumping drums. Teenagers with melodeons, fiddles and guitars were thin on the ground, least of all where the lead singer has the wide-mouthed rich vocal cadence of a broad britched farm labourer of the late 1800s.

Fast forward and the band are now festival darlings and folk club royalty, if still cutting a caper some way out of step with their contemporaries. This is album number five, I believe, following an exploratory EP, with each of the trio all having active addtional extra-curriculars of their own. Who’d a thunk it? And I couldn’t be happier for them.

Attention seized from the outset

It is to a repeated soft clang of slightly atonal bouzouki that the album opens, ahead Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne opening his lungs and, shock horror, rather than the booming explosions he is rightly famed for, it is a gentler and more restrained sound that is forthcoming. It is as glorious a sound as it is unexpected, more John Jones than John Kirkpatrick, and, with George Sansome adding also guitar to his bouzouki, and Lewis Wood some gentle wafts of fiddle, attention is seized from the outset. Squeezing out some appropriate pastoralism from one of his many boxes, B-K dances his instrument with those of his colleagues, the whole a far more delicate concoction that these ears were expecting, The song, Where The Swan Swims So Bonny, is certainly as bonny a start as could have been anticipated, ending on a slow meander of melodeon.

FULL THROTTLE

More to expected wisdom is a “new” take on Claudy Banks, new only in that is isn’t the better known melody, rather being one that Ralph Vaughan-Williams jotted down, as an unnamed sang it to him. (How do I know this? The answer is courtesy a detailed booklet, explaining and expanding the provenance of the material here chosen, each of the band taking turn to explain how and when they came on these versions. Believe me when I say it adds enormously to the enjoyment, to listen and to read at the same time. B-K is more in full throttle for this one, most of the accompaniment crashing in after his introductory verse.

If you sense a deeper bottom end in the mix, you are right, as the trio have enlisted the double bass of Sid Goldsmith for several of the songs. You’ll swear there are drums, but you’d be wrong, that coming from the rigidity of the rhythmic play, with the melodeon and fiddle conspiring also to have you hear oboe, such is the flavour imbued. It is all very Battle Of The Field, Kirkpatricks era Albion Country Band.

Music for dancing

Granny’s Attic are much more than just songs, mind, instrumentals always part of the mix, or, more correctly, music for dancing to. The Morris is possibly one of the better loved expressions of this. One has to wonder how much the trio have had in the now seemingly blooming once more state of this noble activity, dying, literally, on its feet, back when the band first began. Bobbing Joe and Lumps of Pudding are two morris tunes that remain large in the repertoire of the various Cotswold sides and traditions. Their deeper history, before and since, are discussed, as to how melodies are allowed to vary, but I fear I was simply drawn to my feet. Fine playing, and avoiding the sometimes temptation to rush. Wood’s fiddle is a joy.

The Nightingale possesses one of those robust arrangements that shriek Carthy, it also the first song when B-K’s bandmates add some wholesome harmonies, the song a composite of several around the same origin. Lovely Joan, which follows, is amongst the better known of the songs here, the opportunity for Sansome to take the reins of the vocal. His voice is a purer instrument, pitched higher and has a vulnerability B-K could seldom be accused of. Lewis’s fiddle swaps between pizzicato and bowing, as the ensemble build up a slow head of steam. It makes for great contrast, ending on a plangent sixpence.

Melancholy so stark

One of those appealingly sweet fiddle/squeezebox intros beckons in The False Bride, finding B-K once more in restrained mood, one I am finding one of the deeper pleasures presented here. And, whilst there never seemed any sense of competition between he and Sansome, in the vocal stakes, this is a first where I could equally imagine both of them wanting to do this. But it becomes a dead cert for the guitarist, who also adds a wistful and lonely lower strings solo, towards the end.

To be fair, the melancholy now so stark, it is only by building on this that this can or should go, with the sadness of New Allemand weeping out the speakers. A slow dance tune, from Hampshire, and sourced by Wood, it is paired with Quick Step, a jauntier tune that shows how dancing can put a braver face on anything. If anything, a factor across the set, thus far, is that there seems to be the greater use of melodeon, with concomitantly less of the greater abrasiveness of concertina.

Moving on and there are a couple of further songs from the intriguingly entitled Southern Songster, it having also provided the False Bride heard earlier. B-K has always relished the maritime, and Jack The Sailor gives him plenty to get his jaw around, the 5/4 timing adding to the sense of a rolling wave. Sticking seaward, The Mermaid is a plaintive ballad, with Sansome near alone, just he and his guitar. The prettiest song here, it is the ability of the three performers to swap and switch direction that is one of their greatest appeal. Of course, melodeon and fiddle seep in, so as to heighten the feel of incipient tragedy to the vocal.

Old new distinctions blurred

All this trad.arr. misses out one important aspect in the Attic, that of the importance of new. Or, rather, how sometimes the distinction between one and the other can become blurred. Thus, Conversations is “by” Wood, although, in the notes, he muses on the fact that very little is new, all dependent upon what any other musician has then brought to the table. Largely unison play, each all get a turn to sparkle in the spotlight, with Sansome’s picking perhaps shining the most, his guitar play otherwise often more the mode of rhythmic impetus than the melodies his companions are there to provide.

Closing with the title song, B-K has found yet another alternate melody to string along the mournful lyric. His concertina on full church organ, and, I may be wrong, there are also the cleaner and higher tones of melodeon. Goldsmith’s bass keeps the song on track, with Sansdome’s guitar adding emphatic plinks, as Wood weaves a sinous skytrail about both. It makes for a classy finale and, like a tasting menu, leaves you wanting more.

Trying to improve water

When you set as rigid a template as have Granny’s Attic, where, you may ask, is the room for progression and growth? Well, it’s a bit like trying to improve water, or provide an alternative to sunlight, arguably a bit pointless, but there are changes, if somewhat subtle, suggesting that laurels are not to be rested upon, neither wrested away.

Against type, let’s go for the Sansome driven Lovely Joan to whet your appetite:

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