RACHEL UNTHANK

& THE WINTERSET

The BAIRNS (EMI)

glorious **** UNCUT   utterly gorgeous **** GUARDIAN   deeply atmospheric **** MOJO   a magical album.. a work of towering quality TELEGRAPH   Quite possibly the folk album of this generation ***** ROCK'N'REEL

The Unthank sisters and the Winterset have stripped down the song to its essence, they sing and play Seasong exactly as I felt it in my head, before I even recorded it. I think they are a wonderful group, and I'm very grateful to them for including it. They are like the morning dew that hasn't steamed off yet, they are new and fresh and I really don't think they know how good they are. ROBERT WYATT

With the brand new album The BAIRNS, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset have accomplished the seemingly impossible task of creating a unique successor to the group's highly acclaimed début album Cruel Sister. Rather than resting on their laurels, they have created a work that is, paradoxically, both more commercially accessible and musically challenging than its predecessor. Empathically striking and wholeheartedly brave, The BAIRNS is rich with the quality of centuries-old songs and the creative force of four young musicians at their peak. Rachel Unthank & The Winterset push themselves and the listener, reaching profound levels of emotional and musical complexity, chaos and clarity.

Dancing down the leftfield and singing in their own lilting Geordie accents, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset have the power to embrace both staunch tradition and sonic adventure. The all-girl Northumbrian group has steadfastly courted the mainstream without diluting their folk music and this intuitive direction has lured fans as disparate as Nic Jones, Joan As Policewoman, Kate Rusby and Alasdair Roberts. Fearless, peerless and wholeheartedly brave, they do the North-East proud with the honesty and imagination brought to bear on its traditions but also deliver equally charming interpretations of songs by the likes of Antony & The Johnsons, Robert Wyatt and Bonnie Prince Billy.

The BAIRNS opens with a striking contemporary arrangement of Felton Lonnin, a traditional song associated with Tyneside's Johnny Handle, and closes with another traditional song Newcastle Lullaby. Behind these bare song descriptions, however, lies a powerful, atmospheric, piano-led rendition of the former song (setting Rachel's unsentimental dialect singing against a gently surging wave of piano, double bass, fiddle and hypnotic percussion from Becky Unthank in her high heels) and a Steve Reich-like performance of the latter title (with vocals and pianos that sound delayed and looped, but like Reich, the repetitive figures and shifting patterns are completely natural, built from real performance).

In between these opening and closing titles are 9 more songs, divided up by four Lulls, intervals that act as pedal points between the more intense performances but are intriguing musical divertiments in their own right, variously packed with bird calls, a childrens song, an acappella tale of lost love, a duet and a simple Can't Stop It Raining (in which Rachel sings and accompanies herself on ukelele with charming simplicity).

The BAIRNS also reveals pianist Belinda O'Hooley as a songwriter, with two self-penned tracks: the radio friendly Blackbird; and the compelling Whitethorn, a harrowing account of female plight in 19th century Ireland.

As the new recording was gestating in the studio, the quartet suddenly found itself reduced to a trio. Niopha Keegan joined the group as a replacement at very short notice: her fiddle can be heard to great effect throughout and her voice in the majestic harmony singing of such songs as Terry Conway's Fareweel Regality.

It is a testament to the skills of all involved that this recording blends the new and the old so inventively but effortlessly. Rarely has the experimental seemed so accessible.