October 2005

One of my favourite pieces of musical merchandise is a tea-towel made to commemorate Shane Howard's album "The River", bearing the phrase "Some Songwriters Never Dry Up". David Hyams is a musician and performer who not only never dries up, but like the river he never seems to stop moving.

"Knowing the Place", his new CD, continues on the journey begun five years ago with his "Miles to Go" album, which launched the career of the eponymous band. Both albums are collections of ambitious, original instrumentals, belonging for the most part to the Celtic dance tune tradition but showing the influences of David's many journeys in the worlds of contemporary and traditional acoustic music. Both albums have a strong sense of inspiration from places and journeys, physical and musical.

The new CD sets its stall out right away. "Flat Out Like Lizard Drinking" starts out with a Sam Bush-esque funk mandolin riff that soon underpins a bubbly set of reels on wooden flute and uilleann pipes. Just as you're getting comfortable with this groove, the space opens out into a rhythmic didge followed by a multipart horn arrangement that would sit comfortably on a La Bottine Souriante album, leading back into a reprise of the opening tune. It's all gloriously unexpected and inventive, and it rocks to boot.

I won't go track-by-track, but suffice it to say that just about every track has the same rich combination of tasty tunes, fresh arrangements and impressive musicality. David's lovely old Gibson mandolin appears beautifully recorded on a number of tracks. "Leaving Jinparinya" has some lyrical dobro as well as mandolin, blending with Ormonde Waters concertina, a mix you certainly don't hear every day, and typifying the varied palette of instrumental colours throughout the album. "Worlds Colliding" is a particular favourite, drawing on the Donal Lunny trick of having a familiar Celtic tune rhythm emerging out of a seemingly unrelated opening riff, in this case a delicate fingerpicked guitar and mandolin figure. David's fingerpicking is a prominent feature of several of the more lyrical tracks, particularly the gorgeous "Song for Indigo" and the closing cut "Back of Beyond" (a title inspired by a geographically challenged American tourist) on which cellist Jennifer Tingley shines.

The musicianship, production and recording quality are outstanding throughout, and special mention should be made of Dougal Adams on wooden flute and Ormonde Waters on concertina, pipes and whistle. These two are as impressive a front line as you'll hear in any Celtic-inspired band in the country.

If you enjoyed "Miles to Go" then you'll certainly be captivated. The overall theme, like the first album, is an exploration of the confluence between traditional Celtic folk and American-influenced New Acoustic styles, and it succeeds in staking out a patch of ground all of its own. The noticeable development in the intervening five years between the two albums is the band is now an established working unit, and that shows in the integrity of the sound.