The Imagined Village - Music (Various Artists)

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Customer Reviews of The Imagined Village

The Apple God
Devon
15th November 2008

Where's my arran sweater?
I think this is probably a great album and certainly a sterling effort to bring together a range of influences both old and new to fuse a new UK folk perspective. The first talking bit sounds like Stanley Unwin on that Small faces album though and it can get just a little bit self indulgent - Hopefully like me though it will inspire you to re look at the rich heritage of traditional music this country has to offer

C. A. G. Murray
Essex
25th October 2008

disappointed
Definitely a Curate's egg of a recording - good in parts. The first track (spoken) is excellent as are some of the more traditionally done tracks e.g John Barleycorn, and Hard Times of Old England with current day hard times is brilliant. I was looking forward to hearing a different version of Tam Lyn (one of my favourite songs) but RAP!!!! come on! an abomination.

Christopher
Bruges, Belgium
12th October 2008

Where the heart is
Dear Georgina,
What a wonderful idea of Nomasters and yourself to issue 'our' Imagined Village cd. I say 'our' right away, because the homeliness, the recognition and the heart-warming tunes are sufficient to make the most hardened of man/woman melt away on (soft) impact.
As you most surely know (and as much as Barry, Jim and Lester do) there is that poem of Rupert Brooke's that says that, wherever a British soldier might find his final resting-place, there is that secure spot 'that is forever England'.
At the computer keyboard in the attic of our cosy home but all around in Flanders as much as anywhere and everywhere, one can feel that same - the French would say - certain je ne sais quoi, meaning the warmth of a world past and present, and intensely present as it has finds its place in the placid innermost hearts of people of good will everywhere.

There is that tv programme here that is called 'man bites dog'. The title of this is a world turned upside down. Normally, 'dog bites man' is supposd to be 'no news', as dogs are likely to bite. 'Man bites dog' could be the good news that we so often have to do without in our papers and on the media. In the best tradition of CB&S, Waterson-Carthy, John Tams, June Tabor, Show of Hands, Brian Wilson, The Sixteen, the English choral tradition, Vaughan-Williams, Ian Bostridge, King's Singers but also Ray Davies, Sandy Denny and all those other good people - just fancy having honest artists as Billy Bragg and Paul Weller on a project, not to mention all the rest.

As you wilkl see, I have been a long-time folk buff: Planxty, Fairport C., Albion Band, Swan Arcade (yes, that was a younger Jim), Van Morrison, Traffic (with Stev(i)e Winwood of the original Barleycorns), Virginia Astley, Rick Wakeman, why not even Macca at times (Willow, Think of his 'Flaming Pie' and his 'Ram' projects) or, say, Joan Baez (heard her latest?) or the Tull's Ian Anderson. And I could go on and on and on as I flick through an extensive LP and CD collection.

What it all adds up to is this: if one cherishes simplicity and truthfulness, harmony and respect, tradition and future and a respect for all things great and small (yes, especially those), one is in the best of companies. And what this amounts to is just one thing: that this reflection is dedicated to you all, good people, and that it comes from the inner village with the age-old but brand-new windmills of our minds.

Take care. And time. And give us more of this kind when the time is right. This cd deserves to be taken in slowly, like a glass of choice wine.

Man of Kent
Kent, England
30th September 2008

Almost moved to tears, wonderful
I can't quite work out why i was almost moved to tears by this album, then I listened to 'Hard times in Old England' and thought "John Peel would have loved this..." and it pushed me over the edge...
This album has profoundly affected the way i think about not just English Folk music but Englishness in general: I like folk, but in small doses (and definitely without my finger in my ear!) and I also like house, rock, drum and bass, reggae, and this album made me think these days bands like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span make up a backbone of "what people think folk used to be". We should remember these bands were ground breaking in their day, and so it is with this album.
Enjoy, and if you can't afford to buy it, dowload 'Hard times..' off Youtube.

A. Ryan

29th September 2008

Eddie Reader, but even worse !
....warbling, affected, ill-considered, jarringly incompatible ingredients.... total rubbish.
Except for Bob (?) Coppers' little spoken word section; for which the only star.