Other Reviews

02/12/2008

Crow Coyote Buffalo

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Mama

Mama are Zoë Pollock and Sarah McQuaid, You may remember Zoë from her recently re-recorded early nineties hit 'Sunshine On A Rainy Day' since those dance crazed days she has undergone something of a transformation, the new version of the song is a World influenced acoustic affair that sounds much better than the original. You may also have come across her under the pseudonym Hepzibah Broom with a seriously off the wall trip-folk wig-out release on the Red Deer Club label.

Sarah McQuaid is a highly talented guitarist and singer who is equally at home with Irish trad or Appalachian folk. Her recent album I Won’t Go Home ’Til Morning is a celebration of old-time Appalachian folk, with Sarah’s arrangements punctuated by her own compositions and a cover of Bobbie Gentry’s classic ‘Ode to Billie Joe’. Sarah and Zoë met in Cornwall where they have both ended up after living and working all over the world, they actually met at the School gates dropping their children off. They struck up a friendship and then Mama was born.

Crow Coyote Buffalo is the result of this musical partnership and it's every bit as eclectic and varied as their musical backgrounds. It draws on every strand of their influences and weaves them into a very unexpected tapestry that is really hard to sum up succinctly, two pagan goddesses channeling the ghost of Jim Morrison via 60's acid folk would be one stab at it...

The beautiful title track is infused with Native American imagery and is as much storytelling as song, set against sparse percussion it is a mesmerising experience. Each and every track draws you in to a fresh new world, it has a whole different frame of reference to anything around at the moment, this is without doubt the most original thing I have heard this year. Mind you, the first song The Fool Of Spring doesn't do the album justice, I found myself skipping it every time I listened to it.

Crow Coyote Buffalo is an album that seems to shift and move on every listen, I didn't mention Jim Morrison lightly as they tap a vein of poetry and imagery that the Doors mined mightily in their work, here it has a decidedly feminine and natural cast to it.

Challenging, yet relaxing and uplifting, Crow Coyote Buffalo is a very pleasant surprise.

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