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Review: Les Caravanes, Bristol Folk House – ‘A folk revolution’
Les Caravanes is a Travelling Folk Club, a ten-strong, often-changing celebration of the immediacy of Folk music and the power of the song.
It’s made up of various members of the (very cool) Broadside Hacks family and the (equally cool) Shovel Dance Collective and there’s not a single cable-knit sweater or tankard in sight. Not a single song is sung with a finger-in-the-ear.
There is, however, a nod towards Les Cousins, the legendary late-night club in 60s Soho that helped give birth to Nick Drake, John Martyn, Sandy Denny, Paul Simon and many others.
is needed now More than ever
As well as, probably, the 1930s Bohemian hang-out, the Caravan Club, which was a chaotically liberal home for lovers of literature, music, art and philosophy.
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In the spirit of the free-wheeling life, of that Bohemian sense of freedom and adventure, most of Les Caravanes haven’t actually made it to Bristol tonight.
There’s talk of fun on Brighton Beach and of a broken-down van but the upshot is that there are only three singers and no instruments. A battered guitar is magic-ed from somewhere, a microphone arranged and passing songs are plucked from the air.
From nothing, the Folk House bar suddenly crackles with life.
As the microphone is set up, and sound levels vaguely checked, Molly Crisp sits with guitar in hand. Un-phased, clearly used to a tiny bit of chaos, she leans in and sings. Her version of Karen Dalton’s It Hurts Me Too is halting and utterly charming. There’s vulnerability but a glorious, ragged beauty too.
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From there, Les Caravanes sees alternating short sets from Mataio Austin Dean, from Shovel Dance, and Sam Grassie. This caravan might not, really, have the right number of wheels but Dean and Grassie make it a cavalcade.
Mataio Austin Dean has an extraordinary voice. There’s passion and power, a hypnotic whirl of storytelling, there’s anger and desperation, there’s empathy and intimacy.
He describes this as “overly intense, unaccompanied English folk song” but that’s not entirely right. The Brown Girl trembles with emotion, his voice seemingly time-travelling from that Soho basement. This is proper folk: ghosts flicker and stories fragment and layer.
Dean is not afraid to teach either. Each song is carefully chosen to explore another idea, another ideology, another philosophy.
The sea shanty Essequibo River has an incredible resonance when sung by a person of Guyanese descent and John Every, a song about a slave-trading pirate, literally seethes. It is here that Dean fully unleashes the power of his voice, rattling the bottles behind the bar, stunning those listening.
He explains, with a wry smile, that he “used to be a full-time Communist” but singing got in the way.
Instead, Dean is now using that voice to highlight, to expose. His version of Gathering Rushes in the Month of May (learnt from the incomparable Shirley Collins) is full of frank sensuality and the reminder of the presence of black and brown characters in folk song. It is another searingly powerful moment.
Sam Grassie is a different proposition altogether. An affable, chatty Glaswegian who doesn’t attempt to silence with power, instead he does it through incredible skill. As a young person, just learning to play guitar, Grassie discovered Bert Jansch, and you can tell.
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His playing, even on a borrowed “beast of a thing”, is exquisite. Most find it hard enough to play Angie (or Anji if you prefer the Davy Graham original) as it is; Grassie glides across unfamiliar strings, fingerpicking the intricate melody as though he’s simply breathing out.
An unnamed instrumental, too, is suffused in the warmth and depth of an old 45. It feels alive, as though if it weren’t played it would dive off into the undergrowth and escape.
Versions of Blues Run the Game and Come Back Baby are gorgeous. Not faithful renditions but celebrations – just as the best cover versions always are. Grassie’s voice perfectly suits his material, it’s 60s-soaked and gentle, forward-facing with backward glances.
When Dean and Grassie combine, as on the traditional As I Roved Out, they take hold of every folk cliche and gently move them to one side. Male voices are unguarded, stories are subtly reframed, playing is rooted in the present day.
The Bristol stop-over of Les Caravanes might not have had all of its travellers but the ones that did make it were extraordinary. Broadside Hacks, and all of their friends, are staging a folk revolution and it is the most exciting thing.
All images: Gavin McNamara
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