Talk of the Future

Croft No Five

I've had this album for a few months now, but every time I've come to review it I don't get anywhere as I don't think I can do it justice. This is their second album proper and it oozes a worldly experience that these young guys just shouldn't posess; their instrumentation of guitars, whistles, accordian, keyboards, horns and anything else that comes to hand is polished and masterful. Mostly an album of instrumental pieces except the penultimate track 'Passing Train' where the music swirls around the effortlessly cool spoken vocals.

The strength of this album lies in the different world of imagery to be had in every track, one moment they sound Scottish in that windblown Highland heathery way but as soon as you notice it your whipped away and thay sound like a French jazz quartet or a dance band. A great example is the first track 'Elephant', an elegy to a childhood tale of an African Elephant, the music takes you on a magic carpet ride across continents, I think the only singer that could have complemented the track would be Natacha Atlas.

From those middle eastern grooves your pulled into jazz club territory with '80 euro' then the layers of keyboards and accordian build up in 'Vit Zone', 'Party In The Arc' is a get up and move your feet kind of thing. At this point you realise what the term 'fusion' really means as you hear it all come together so well.

So, to sum up, Celtic roots, jazz-rock-dance fusion. What makes them different from the competition is the absence of violin (there was a fiddle player on the first album however), Their roots are celtic and they are looking to the future not the past. A band to watch, I'm sure they will continue to innovate and surprise.

Iain Hazlewood