Tales from the Barrel House: Cd/dvd Edition

"GRITTY folk singer-songwriter and virtuoso fiddler Seth Lakeman could not have dug deeper into his roots for his 6th album, "Tales from the Barrel House." He went down a disused West Country copper mine to record one track. The rest of the songs on this "experimental" CD were laid down in the cooperage (The Barrel House of the title), old smithy and other workshops at the ghostly Morwellham mining port on the Devon bank of the River Tamar. In his boldest musical statement yet, Seth, has not only written the songs, but played everything produced and mixed the album. His bow-shredding violin riffs are there, together with his driving tenor guitar rhythms. But it's the primitive new sounds he's conjured up that give this album it's atmospheric vibe - loads of what Seth calls "dirty viola," banjo, bouzouki, a booming bass heartbeat from an old Salvation Army drum he rescued from a junkshop, and a jangling array of percussion made up from bits of old iron or discarded tools found down the mine and around the Morwellham workshops. The album opens with blissful birdsong from the idyllic Tamar Valley. Then a rasping viola sound that makes the hair stand on end, and a dynamic song ("More than Money") that is fiercely evocative of the hardships of the men working underground. This album is like the granite bedrock of Seth's West Country stamping ground - solid, hard and uncompromising. Seth says he has enjoyed this solo project like no other. "I've been aching to do something musically experimental like this for some time, to get right back to the basics of Kitty Jay - and beyond" (The £300 kitchen-table album that shot him to fame). "To be blunt, this is a concept album I could never have done with a major label" (He has now left Relentless/EMI/Virgin after three records). "I'm grateful for having worked in some of the best-equipped studios and with top producers, but with this record I feel free. I've not had A&R men looking over my shoulder or record bosses influencing me in any way."