The Derbyshire trio sample and loop and don't bother with words, but it's got plenty in common with a strand of 70s rock
Friday night, and it's down to the venue below the Guardian's offices. No Prince this time, though, but three women from Derbyshire, armed with trumpet, accordion, piano, keyboards, guitar, ukelele and a selection of other instruments. This is Haiku Salut, whose album of this time last year I reviewed and liked (such is the incredible power of the Guardian within the UK music industry that their manager tells me before the show my review was crucial to them getting a support slot with UK folk's current instrumental superstars, Lau).
Reading on mobile? Watch Haiku Salut play Los Elefantes here
The gig is presented under the Folk Union banner, and our MC embarks on a long introduction explaining why the term is apposite for Haiku Salut. Because, the fact is, there is no traditional song here – no lyrics at all, in fact. And sampling and looping, the effect du jour of the lo-fi leftfielder, is very much in evidence. But I can see what he means: it's music that sounds every bit as English as the Watersons, even if the tradition it is picking up on is a rather different one. Haiku Salut's is the folk music you get when what surrounds you are not the natural rhythms of the seasons, but the artificial light and temperature of the supermarket or the call centre. It sounds in touch with the world; it's just a different world to the one previous generations of folk musicians might have encountered. A world where Tuung are the curators at Cecil Sharp House, perhaps.
Reading on mobile? Watch Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance play You Never Can Tell here
But it put me in the mood for music that sounded like it reflected England. And so I spent a chunk of the weekend listening to the forthcoming compilation of Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance, from that period when British rock'n'rollers were heading to the countryside to try to forge their own new kind of roots music, based on everything they'd grown up. Where Lane had rock'n'roll, music hall and standards feeding into his vision, Haiku Salut have laptronica, house music and Beirut. But it's all part of the same continuum.
by Michael Hann via Music: Electronic music | theguardian.com
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