Leveret is a new trio featuring three of England's top instrumentalists - Andy Cutting, Sam
Sweeney (Bellowhead) and Rob Harbron (The Full English). All three are well known for their work with numerous artists and bands - listeners will have heard at least one of them along the way, and probably all three - but you will never have heard them like this before:
playing music for its own sake, spontaneously and in the moment. There are no arrangements - the trio's music is built entirely on listening, understanding and trust. Over several years of working together on various projects, Sam and Rob had built up an extensive repertoire of tunes that they'd unearthed from manuscripts and tune books. Both had played with Andy occasionally along the way, and when all three of them were playing with Fay Hield's Hurricane Party the idea of doing some playing as a trio seemed compelling. They spent a weekend in Sam's house sharing repertoire and promptly booked a tour of small venues. A few months later they found themselves in the beautiful Red Kite Studio in Wales recording this album. After a couple of days of getting played in, the CD was recorded live in one room, in one day. In most bands, arrangements are fixed - tunes are played the same number of times through, players often play the same parts and so on. For this band, it feels entirely natural for all the decisions about the music to be made in real time; each piece is played as new and no two gigs will sound the same. Yet the sound is clear and coherent, balanced and focused - three distinct musicians speaking as one voice. The
English tradition has not always valued its instrumental repertoire as highly as some of
our neighbours - there are only a handful of recordings of source players - and yet the
tunes are there in their thousands. This album comes at a time when there is a growing
interest in instrumental music; it doesn't always fit into what has come to be known as
'the English style' but it's without doubt a current and contemporary recording of English
repertoire by three top-notch instrumentalists with deep roots in the tradition.
01 - Bagpipers (4.58)
02 - Gallons of Cognac (3.15)
03 - Northern Lass / The Kings' Barrows (5.45)
04 - Jenny Pluck Pears (4.46)
05 - It's a Square Word / Cossack Square (3.46)
06 - Sylvia's Serenade / Blew Bell Hornpipe (6.12)
07 - Milford (3.10)
08 - New Anything / St Catherine (4.52)
09 - Glorishears / Foul Weather Call (4.59)
10 - Upon a Summer's Day / Abbots Bromley Horn Dance (6.24)
11 - Whitefriar's Hornpipe / Purlongs (4.44)
Andy Cutting: diatonic button accordion, melodeon;
Sam Sweeney: violin, viola;
Rob Harbron: English concertina