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Gold, frankincense and myrrh

Beating time

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE & MYRRH
By Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band
Park Records

There is more than a whiff of the orient about this unusual Christmas CD. This is not King’s College Choir, neither is it some nasal or breathy singer belting out a cheesy up-beat version of ‘O Little Town’. There is an attempt here to be slightly more authentic, particularly via the Arabic and African influences on many of the tracks.

The singers and instrumentalists are genuinely accomplished. Apart from the advantage of having a voice to sigh for, Maddy Prior has surrounded herself with acoustic musicians who have an impressive degree of expertise. These are people who know a shawm from a balafon and know what to do with either.

I suppose this could be termed a ‘concept’ album and the concept is the journey of the magi. Thus it is large on speculation and fable. The words of many of the songs were penned by Maddy Prior herself. If you can forgive her imaginative approach, you may appreciate the excitement the tracks generate about the child the wise men sought; you may also enjoy the sense of place and atmosphere of the music, perhaps a needful antidote to the well-accepted English fables about the ‘bleak midwinter’.

There are songs here to stamp your feet to and shout ‘hoi’ (which may alarm unsuspecting Christmas guests) and there is the delightful and very clever ‘Song of the Animals’, complete with moos and baas. Those who have relished Maddy Prior’s previous ventures into hymnody will find themselves on more familiar territory with a long forgotten 18th-century gem, ‘Hark, hark what news’, while the final track, ‘Bethlehem Down’, is a haunting number to remind us that the incarnation is a long way from tinsel and jingling bells or even choir boys in a candlelit cathedral nave.

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