Alchemy

"Folk music and early music has long leapt together, most famously on Shirley and Dolly Collins's Anthems in Eden. Nearly half a century later, Emily Askew and her band plunge us into the uncanny soundworlds of the past across Europe, carrying us from the 13th to the 17th centuries with beauty, precision and charge. Askew is an outlandishly talented folk multi-instrumentalist, playing fiddle, vielle, recorder, bagpipes, harp, shawm and drum deftly and tenderly throughout. Her voice is also a beacon, free of prettiness and artifice, straight, direct and bold. These arrangements also beguile ... This record is firmly traditional, sure, but it's also outward-looking and timeless".

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"Right from the start, this was intriguing stuff, so much so that the CD was played three times straight off. It wasn't folk musicians pretending that they know about early music, it was too well-researched and played for that. It wasn't the po-faced conservatoire lot with their reproduction early instruments implying that they knew exactly how it used to sound. There was too much fun and enjoyment in the performance ... Freed from the false restraints of genre, the modern fiddle sits happily alongside the viola d'amour, early bagpipes find themselves alongside appropriate electronic sounds ... Everything about "Alchemy" suggests attention to detail ... It deserves to be a roaring success".