The Imagined Village -
'Empire And Love'

CD from UK

$A33.00 (plus packing & postage)
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The release of The Imagined Village marked one of the most ambitious reinventions of the English folk tradition. Simon Emmerson, Martin and Eliza Carthy and the team have built on the success of the first album with the follow up Empire and Love. How did this 'second stage' of The Imagined Village come about? Well, in April 2009 the band members met at Simon Emmerson's house in remote West Dorset to discuss doing a more 'live' sounding album, something more reflective of their stage energy. The cost of residential recording was prohibitive, so the band set about converting Simon's garage. The sleepy village soon got used to seeing a Turbaned Sikh percussionist, a female sitar player and folk dignitaries wandering about the place. The local pub started running folk sessions, a curry night based on band recipes was established , the drummer's fish curry being the local's favourite. In six months the studio was built, the album finished and mixed ready for release on Simon's new label. Empire and Love'includes a first band recording of concert favourite Scarborough Fair placing Chris Wood's vocals on a bed of guitar and sitar. It is perhaps one of the most recognizable English traditional songs, first appearing on Martin Carthy's eponymous debut album in 1965. Paul Simon learnt it from Martin when the former was touring the UK as a then-unknown American folksinger. He recorded it as one-half of Simon & Garfunkel, taking the song into millions of global bed-sits. Returning home, 44 years later, the song having by now become buried in the universal consciousness, the result is thousands of audience members singing along to the version by The Imagined Village (featuring original creator Martin Carthy) at Towersey and Cambridge Folk Festivals. A traditional, yet also very contemporary, song cycle.

Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, and Chris Wood, backed by a band featuring Simon Emmerson, Johnny Kalsi, Ali Friend, Andy Gangadeen, Simon Richmond, Sheema Mukherjee and Barney Morse Brown.

1. My Son John
2. Sweet Jane
3. Space Girl
4. Byker Hill
5. Scarborough Fair
6. Mermaid
7. Handweaver And The Factory Maid, The
8. Lark In The Morning
9. Rosebuds In June/Mrs. Preston's Hornpipe
10. Cum On Feel The Noize
11. Scarborough Fair [string reprise]

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