Voices from the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)

Imagine ‘She Moved Through the Fair’ given voice through bowed solo bass, its opening notes rumbling like the subterranean calls of buried Titans, underlaid below the tune itself as it follows the fluid turns of melody. Well, imagine no more – bassist Devin Hoff has made it real, arranging the parts into arresting new wholes. The bassist has studied the music of Anne Briggs for over a decade, followed its paths like a tracker of game, transcribing, practicing, arranging and performing from her recorded output and inviting guest artists to bring their own trails into Briggs’ music to the fore. Thus Sharon Van Etten delivers a beautiful ‘Go Your Way’ against layered, angular stabs of bass, while Julia Holter's take on ‘Let No Man Steal Your Thyme’ builds from rich chamber-gothic to nightmarish instrumental shrieks and drones. Roughly half of the songs feature vocalists, while the others are ‘sung’ on double bass, oud, saxophone, guitar and drums. Which means Alejandro Farha's oud giving voice to ‘The Snow it Melts the Soonest / My Bonny Boy’, the elemental mournful calls of Howard Wiley's sax dripping across ‘Maa Bonny Lad’, or Jim White's subtle percussion on ‘Willie O Winsbury’. For a new perspective on Briggs, this is arresting territory to explore.