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A few years ago Mojo magazine went gaga for Eliza Carthy’s 1998 release, Red Rice. Mojo favored Carthy with glowing record reviews, shiny live performance reviews and even one of those “Sunday Morning After” column spreads. Heck, maybe they put her on the cover, too, I just don’t know. Eliza is a rather traditional English folk singer--perhaps fuzzy folk tunes performed on even fuzzier instruments simply gave the Mojo editors some much needed relief. When the modern music business is obsessed with android singers, Auto-Tuned pop stars and the vacant stares of Fall Out Boy wannabes, folk just feels right, I guess.

But Eliza Carthy is an artist deserving of greater international coverage, as her 1999 Mercury Prize made clear. With some 13 albums under her barely 30-year-old belt, Carthy has folk music majesty in her blood. The daughter of British guitarist/vocalist Martin Carthy and vocalist Norma Waterson, Carthy helped forge a renaissance within England’s folk scene, no easy task when you consider that your average British folkie probably spends his/her days chasing gremlins and goblins round clammy bogs and crop circled Stonehenge.

Carthy’s first musical forays came with her own band, the Kings Of Calicutt, back in 1990. Their lone album was released three years later, followed in ‘96 by Carthy’s solo debut, Heat Light & Sound. She also recorded with her parents in Waterson:Carthy, and with Basque band, Hirutruku. Angels & Cigarettes followed the widely acclaimed Red Rice; Rough Music appeared in 2005.

Dreams Of Breathing Underwater finds Carthy rocking her fiddle and crooning in traditional burr, her songs adhering to her parent’s sense of style, yet with a sure infusion of thoroughly modern sentiment.

“Follow The Dollar” is particularly apt for US audiences, as we follow the dollar down, down, down. Not sure if Eliza’s message is political, but the song bucks and kicks like a mad Irish jig fuelled by Guinness. She sings that “We don’t need much confirmation, we just need the radio station,” and I assume that is independent Brit radio, not the glossy Virgin radio, which used to be the determining factor in London local listening.

“Mr. Magnifico” creates a virtual glowing heath (hearth?) with whispered vocals, gently plucked guitar, and what sounds like a wheezing pump organ.

“Lavenders” goes further, yawning strings and bellows (!) lining the lush cloud of Carthy’s mesmeric vocals. Chamber orchestra, ghostly backing vocals, slightly Arabic sounding strings, “Lavenders” is oddly spooky, its sound effects of wind blown book pages as comforting as a haunted chapel at midnight.

Eliza Carthy
"Follow The Dollar" (mp3)
from "Dreams Of Breathing Underwater"
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Eliza Carthy
"Mr Magnifico" (mp3)
from "Dreams Of Breathing Underwater"
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More On This Album

Eliza Carthy
"Lavenders" (mp3)
from "Dreams Of Breathing Underwater"
(Topic)

More On This Album

Incredible String Band return?: Well, almost. Newly reissued tracks from former member Robin Williamson and his Merry Band

“In 1975 as the Incredible String Band dissolved Robin Williamson relocated to Los Angeles. He soon began work recording a tremendous body of new songs and a backlog of material that didn’t fit the repertoire of the late period String Band. These songs hark back to the glory days of the Incredible’s based around the majestic acoustic ensemble playing of the Merry Band, this long out-of-print album is a highlight of Williamson’s career.”

"Border Tango"

"The Maharajah Of Mogador"