Across the Western Ocean

The second album of shanties and songs of the sea from Pressgang Mutiny since they came together in 2013 in Toronto, combines to stirring effect traditional shanty work songs with contemporary pieces by Jonathan Byrd, Anaïs Mitchell and Martin Green. Festival favourites across Canada, the US and Europe, Richard Kott, James McKie, Tim Pyron and Stefan Read have, alongside the likes of the much-loved Fisherman’s Friends and Bellowhead, done sterling work in helping to keep alive a vital tradition of work songs that represents the world’s first truly multicultural music.

But alongside lusty versions of familiar songs like ‘Blow the Man Down’, they readily embrace a more delicate song like ‘Roll Away’, written by Anaïs Mitchell about Martin Green’s grandfather’s escape from Vienna during World War II for Green’s Flit project on the refugee experience. In times like these, this splendid collection’s reminder of the importance of community and communal singing can be a valuable thing indeed, so roll, boys, roll away!