Painted

Painted is a kind of folk thesis: a powerful argument that all the world's musical styles comprise a patchwork we could call folk. It is presented via the most anarchic seminar you could ever attend, with a generous student-teacher ratio of 50 musicians to the listener.
The ensemble's leader Joe Broughton was formerly a circus performer. He used to play fiddle while riding a unicycle and his ensemble very much take their lead from his high-wire energy. Opener ‘Banish Misfortune/Poll Ha’penny' sets off with a raucous reel buoyed by complex cross-rhythms that display a conservatoire schooling. A Latin percussion section then cuts a conga line through the arrangement, before a line-dance dash towards an incongruous Iron Maiden-esque guitar breakdown. As all that suggests, Painted is an album to horrify folk purists. A take on the traditional ballad ‘William Taylor’ is particularly provocative, testing even the most open-minded listener's palette with a soft-rock reworking. When it works, as it does in the ebullient bounce of ‘The Butterfly’, Painted is a blast. Much credit is due to the arrangers and mixing for keeping the balance crisp, but even so, it might well be that the polyphonic madness of this very merry bunch is best experienced live.