Have you ever found yourself fiending for a little throwback?
A real “and for my next number, I’d like to return to the classics”-type deal?
Maybe you think, yeah, that baroque pop sound is cool, but it’s still just a little too contemporary for me?
Like, those harpsichirds continue to make it a touch too modern?
Perhaps you’ve wondered, could I have some breakbeats served with a nice krumhorn? Or shawm?
Well, reader, if you find mixing in elements of 17th century music a tad too hip for your sensibilities, I have the album for you!
Why not go WAY back, back to the Renaissance or even the Middle Ages
Here is Scarborough Fair, with instruments that would have been played when the fair itself–not the song–was in its heyday
https://youtu.be/ww5fYfznEFs
Here is Spinning Wheel when blood, sweat, and tears were the peasants’ daily bread
https://youtu.be/O62IOIYszGM
Here is Eli’s Coming, when you really needed three dogs to make it through a cold night
But all with characteristic late 60s rhythms, jazzy riffs, and snapping beats courtesy of a double-drummer lineup
David Munrow is the creative driving force here
A bourgeois Brit who traveled through South America as a youngster and fell in love with the andean flutes and other indigenous instruments he found there
When he returned to England, he got into old European woodwinds, too
By all accounts, he was one of the musicians most responsible for repopularizing so-called “early music”
I think only this album brings the heat on the rhythm section
It’s an impressive piece of esoterica, that still slaps
And if you’re looking for Fab 4, they’ve got you covered there, too
https://youtu.be/tCSImXRcr64
