The Cher to Secretly Canadian's dour Scots folk Sonny, Alasdair Roberts, this disc by Nottingham, England duo Scout Niblett, real names Emma Niblett guitar/vocals and Kristian Goddard drums, is quite simply astonishing. The fact that it has taken such a circuitous route to reach us perhaps reveals more about the lack of adventure of British labels than a lack of home-grown talent. Is it folk? Well was Polly Harvey's first blues? It deals in similar stripped down musical forms. Her quite beautiful voice skips about like a malevolent elf then screams like a distraught blues singer. The lyrics are a surreal delight and at a time when songwriters are quite capable of rewriting the same idea from workshop to stage their weirdness is like a cold shower...refreshing. "We have it all, but I miss my lion". What she's on about I haven't a clue but it sounds great. On Into she swaps electric guitar for acoustic and simply sings the word into over and over and it's compelling as tinkerbell sounds sprinkle behind. It comes from the Will Oldham / post rock side of the road but her voice feels like a kind of deranged Anne Briggs / Sandy Denny. Therefore it does have this abiding deep-seated Englishness even when a mock-cabaret tone intrudes as on Dance of Sulphur. Wet is strummed acoustic guitar and a heartbreaking meditation on lost love? "Wet roads on the way to your house again." East Midlands folk-blues siren? Sort of. If you believed in categorisation then no this isn't in the folk tradition, it's too skewed, too weird but then isn't Pink Moon. Cherish this lady now but remember she kicks up a hell of a racket live covering that well known folk band Nirvana. Their unplugged version of In The Pines is in my top ten folk moments…. so is Ms. Niblett.
SDB ( This review was declined by the BBC because they are lacking in imagination...)

Published in Bucketfull of Brains #61 Summer 2002

An indie record label called Secretly Canadian situated in Bloomington, Indiana is not the first place you'd expect to come across one of the best contemporary take on our traditional folk heritage. It's a curious route that Alasdair Roberts has taken from his home in Glasgow to this his first solo disc. He is lead singer with Scottish indie band Appendix Out who released two acclaimed cds on the Drag City label after teaming up with Will Oldham of Palace Brothers etc. These were more in the Palace Brothers vein but on this disc the focus has moved on to a more naked voice/guitar presentation. We're not talking a solo spot at Sidmouth or new folk nominee just yet though. Not many artists on the folk scene would include a quote from Roland Barthes on their press release. Having said that the rendering of the tunes are incredibly faithful to the idea of the folk process if not to the archival exactitude it pedantically thrives on. He admits to changing locations and even the tune, as on the rewriting of Bogie's Bonnie Bell, and yet the dour, rough feel of his voice and the sincere love of these songs as a continuing narrative tradition make it a very coherent collection. Songs include Lord Gregory, Lowlands, The False Bride amongst others and he expresses his debt to the recorded versions he learnt from on the sleeve. He stakes his place in a revivalist scheme of things as he reveals that he took the versions from Shirley Collins, Dick Gaughan, Anne Briggs etc. a role call of the very best. To me these versions have more truth and real connection to the dark source of these songs for variation, not exactitude, is what oral culture thrives upon. In fact I'd rate this alongside Waterson, Carthy, Gaughan and all and swap it for a Cropredy ticket any day. A british traditional anti-folk hero? Definite maybe.
SDB

also published in Bucketfull of Brains #61 Summer 2002

We live in an era of over-production. The more technology, the more waste and musical artists are as guilty as most. The production of CD's is approaching the billions worldwide as the twin incentive of cheaper production and digital access encourages everybody who ever strummed a guitar to record it for posterity. In a minority of cases this is a good thing. Three savvy art background Canadians came out with a disc on their own label in 2000 and immediately received encouragement to continue via festivals and reviews. It is now released here. The disc was ironically, considering it's digital production, steeped in pre-war folk and blues mythology. Their clothes were thrift store chic a la Gillian Welch School of carefully groomed poverty - Diane Arbus crossed with James Agee. So heroin chic sells clothes why not poverty chic to sell records. With Welch and Rawlings it wouldn't really matter if they were both dressed as Mr. Blobby when you have a degree in music from Berkeley you've got substance. When you're faced with people of note but obviously not in that league it starts to matter. I don't dislike the Be Goods..for they could well be. But this disc is something of a clever construct. It affects a knowledge of past music by covering very obvious songs e.g. Lakes of Pontchartrain which have been done better by the likes of Paul Brady, Nanci Griffiths, Peter Case etc etc.
This is Songbook skimming. Taking the posture and look of an era and making it stand as reality instead of the confection it obviously is. Would the Roches or McGarrigles in their day have dressed up in a vision of the past? On their first discs..look at them - they didn't, they didn't have to. As a record of a real group 'Blue Horse' is premature. A mistake of many an artist these days. Made the disc, got the look and hey here's a website and the marketing starts. It's a tribute to the power of good management. They say you can't judge a book by its cover but in this case you can. It's a pleasant blue-tinged evocation of the past, a sepia take on reality, but bolstered by an extra pair of lungs and a good rhythm section these 'orphan girls' are probably getting as much attention for their gender and opportune timing as for the genuine musical contents. The singing is on a par with the Freakwater discs, which it has to be said did the same job with less attention and more real song-writing. The writing here is borderline average nothing more. If you're looking for this kind of music where the horse really bites try Eleni Mandell or even the recent discs of Scout Niblett and Alasdair Roberts. Oh and they'll soon be on EMI - the new canadian Corrs.......

this review didn't appear on the BBC site... a little too much opinion

Roots, tradition, history. The author of this work has a fair grasp of all of these as well as a magnificent playing technique. Honed through years of practice and stints with The Oyster Band, Peter Astor and Caroline Trettine to name but three Ian Kearey is a musician's musician so how does this his first solo disc shape up. Well it's a fatally flawed outing and one that is equally divided between sheer brilliance and awkward songwriting. Perhaps this was as much to do with the nature of its execution. Four days flat doesn't leave room for revision but to these ears it is the instrumental tracks which really hit home. Kearey is a master on the 12-string tracing a line through his playing back to Leo Kottke /John Fahey and then the great Rev.Gary Davis and all the other pre-war blues masters strumming on their catalogue guitars. There's also a deep knowledge of the English tradition Jansch, Renbourn, Drake et al. and so on tracks like Sophie And The Senator, the trad. Red Apples, Untitled In The Rain etc you get magnificent instrumentals played by a guy at the top of his game. No wonder other artists like Gary Lucas admire his work so much. However there is another side, literally, with six tracks of either self-penned and sung tunes or covers where the results are not so impressive. Whether it's rekindling punk roots ( Walking With The Devil) or revisiting past duets ( Walk IntoThe Wind) or simply producing Richard Thompson B-sides ( New History Dance) his obvious literariness (he lists his recent reading on the cover) and average singing lets him down. Nothing on one side of the fence matches the other. Richard Bell's production of his solo acoustic guitar is also more sure-footed and strident 'rock' moments like the intrusive electric guitar on 'Wind' don't help. There's a fantastic EP of six songs contained herein that I urge anybody who cares about this kind of music to seek out. Repackaged in that form as purely instrumental I reckon it would see Ian Kearey up there with the afore-mentioned greats. Oh and it should be called Requiem for Fahey because the overriding emotional core of this record is contained in the fabulous Requiem For Blind Joe Death. Fahey's recent departure is honoured and in a magical moment links us directly back to Fahey's incredible Requia disc on Vanguard which in turn honoured Mississippi John Hurt. Roots, tradition, history…. Masterclass stuff and not surprising then his home label is called Dan Leno Records and that catalogue number…Leno's death. This boy knows his music hall, his chops and his motorbikes.