We Know Where the Time Goes

Cut and paste is part and parcel of modern culture. What William S Burroughs did with print in the 1950s, and tape in the 60s went on to influence pretty well everybody, from the Beatles on down. Martyn Bennett wielded his digital scissors and glue on a remarkable melding of folk and rave (as reviewed in this issue), and this outing from Simon Emmerson and persons unknown going under the flag of the FLK – KLF backwards, of course – consists of a single, album-length track cut and pasted from a dizzying range of folk recordings. These range from source singers such as Queen Carolyne Hughes to 1970s revivalists Steeleye Span, June Tabor, Fairport Convention and 21st century stars – Jackie Oates’ ‘The Lark in the Morning’ and Emily Portman’s freaky, supernatural ‘Stick Stock’. This is under-the-counter stuff, a sound amalgam that flies in the face of notions of ownership. There’s a snatch of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Scarborough Fair’, itself snatched from Martin Carthy, of course. Who owns what around here?

The KLF’s Bill Drummond gets a back¬cover quote: ‘folk music began to die when the first record was released.’ But Bill, folk was already dying when the first wax cylinder recordings were made, and shellac was still way down the road. Maybe the folk tradition is always dying and coming back to life, like John Barleycorn with a ready-meal, the long arm of the folklore showing through like damp in a new-build block. That’s why it still draws new blood: young singers muck about with ancestors bones, making new strings out of old roots. The FLK comments on, and is part of, that ongoing process.