Six Moulettes, one Mumford and a new addition to The Copper Family

Talking to Hannah Miller, the Moulettes' cellist and lyricist, I was aware that she kept expecting me to misunderstand her. "A lot of people don't get this..." she said at one point. "No scrub that, that sounds mad..." at another. She even offered to write her thoughts down for me, lest I was unable to do them justice aurally.

Because in her mind there is an epic story unfolding. More of that in a minute, but first a few basics.

I was handed a small pile of Moulettes CDs the other day by a promoter called Joe Cushley, who was at The Lantern Society in Clerkenwell, and got simultaneously invited to a gig. Listening to the CDs, I liked them a lot and intended to go along. But it was in Brighton (where most of the band lives) and on the day I wasn't feeling 100 per cent. Then I got a text message from Joe saying that the added filip that had spurred me to agree to go to the Las Vegas of the South Coast wouldn't be available for interview. So me and my inner sloth gave in and stayed home.

However, the more I listened to this band - and in particular to their second album, The Bear's Revenge, to be launched in July - the more I liked them (a process that continues to this day). And then, upon consideration, it became obvious that I should do something about it sooner rather than later. Because sometimes it's good to be first.

So here's the thing. The "added filip" had been that Ted Dwane, Mumford and Sons' bass player, was supposed to be at the Brighton gig and I'd hoped to have a word. As it turned out he wasn't able to make it because Britain's second most lucrative export with the initials M&S had over-run at the London studio where they're recording their second album.

What a shame, I thought, first assuming that mentioning him had been a ploy on the part of the promoter to get me to the gig. Though there was a nagging doubt because if it had been done with any cynicism, surely Joe wouldn't have texted me to let me know Ted couldn't make it?

Anyway, I now realise Ted Mumford wasn't being dangled as a PR bauble. He's listed as a band member on the CD cover, which eventually arrived a week or so later, so I think I'd been under-sold rather than over-sold.

As a result of the Mumford connection I'd imagine there's going to be a bit of a hoo-hah about the Moulettes in the mainstream media pretty soon. And I'd also imagine that the band knows it.

This because one of the Moulettes, Ruth Skipper (bassoon, vocals), is doing her medical finals at the moment but has decided to have a year out from doctoring because it looks as if this might turn out to be the band's big year - and that's not a decision to be taken lightly. "Having a doctor with us encourages my hypercondria," said Hannah. "I'll say to her 'What is this pain in my heart?' And she'll say," there was a pause for dramatic effect, "'You ate your food too quickly'."

Other clues include that they are booked to play the Mumfords' Gentlemen of the Road mini-festivals in Huddersfield and Galway in a couple of months' time and that - this is where I came in - they've just made a brilliant album.

It has the multi-instrumental virtuosity of Bellowhead, the urgency of Mumford & Sons - though without the lyrical directness (they haven't fucked anything up this time) - and the winding, melodic complexity of The Indigo Girls. It also has something unique that I was having trouble putting my finger on.

"I really enjoy fantasy realms," said Hannah. "Not crap fantasy, like lurid album covers with wizards on them. But going to other worlds, like you do in Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Philip Pullman. The songs draw on this love." We'd been speaking for a while but when I asked whether she was watching Game of Thrones,  it was as if  I'd taken all the tension out of the situation by mentioning the thing that she really wanted to talk about. I'd hit the main vein.

"Yes! I'm so glad you brought it up. We love it. It's amazing." I love it too - what's not to like about Lord of the Rings with shagging? So we talked about how that dwarf rocks, that it was a shame that Drogo the horse warrior had to die and how I was really missing out by not having seen any of season two yet.

"That show is like crack," she said, correctly.

Anyway, it turns out that many of the songs on The Bear's Revenge are part of a fantasy narrative that Hannah's inventing: she's writing her own mythological world through songs. "I also weave tapestries. I make them out of fabric and buttons and things. But the funny thing about fantasy is that there is a certain snobbery about it - as if it might not be real or good," she mused. Here's one of her tapestries, which is also artwork for the album. That might or might not be a dragon.

In a way the aesthetic of the Moulettes is like the title sequence of Game of Thrones: all hand-made with a theme containing swooping fiddles and cellos. Apparently several forthcoming videos will involve animating Hannah's tapestries. I must stop dwelling...

So where did the Moulettes come from? "The band started with Ruth and me when we were at school and we've picked people up along the way. We were both at school with Ted." Millfield public school in Somerset, as it turns out. "Ruth and I were both music scholars, so we didn't get out much, and I had a free haircut one day that turned into a mullet. We were joking that it was a moule-ette."

These days there are six full time members. "Myself, Oliver, Ruth, Georgina, Jim and Rob. But there are nine who can call themselves Moulettes. It's very much like an extended family. Ted was in the band until three or four years ago, until things with his other band started taking off. But it's been great having him back again. He worked on the second record with us.

"And while he was touring the States," during which Mumford & Sons were said to have cracked America, "he made some great finds. For instance, he sent us this extraordinary mandolin and banjo player called Matt Menefee who came all the way down to Winchester one day. We picked him up at the station and he did a day's session work for us. He plays progressive bluegrass."

There are lots of trad instruments on the record and Hannah describes the band's sound as "rock, pop, fantasy folk". The fiddle player, Georgina, plays folk and blue-grass, as well as sometimes making noises so assured that her classical training shows through. "She went to the Royal Northern. But Ollie (drums, vocals, guitar, banjo) is completely self-taught and Laura (Hockenhull on vocals) is a real folk-singer. She grew up in a folky family, singing with some of the Unthanks." Hannah's own father is a folk musician who makes musical instruments for a living.

And then there's this. On Friday Laura, whose partner is Ben Copper, gave birth to the newest member of The Copper Family. "Yes! We've got a tiny little Moule baby. I haven't seen her yet but her name's Georgia Rose."

Their fecundity knows no limits. Despite The Bear's Revenge not being officially launched yet, Hannah said she'd be recording some stuff for the next album as soon as we put the phone down, something which is possible, she said, because they have many years' worth of material to fall back on. She's in her late twenties now, so that's probably a decade's worth.

They've got a single out called Sing Unto Me.

"I was thinking about the Nordic mythology of singing the world into being. In the Bible it's The Word, in Narnia the lion sings the world into being. It's about the idea of the world being born and dying in a blaze of harmony," said Hannah.

And there's this, which gives you a bit more of an idea what they're like when they can hear each other.

I should think there'll be some more from them along shortly. I'm going to finally get to a Moulettes gig for a start.

In the mean time, here's that Game of Thrones title sequence in full.

* Moulettes are sexually deviant pagans, says Liverpool Echo. Yay!

* If you really like Game of Thrones you might also be interested in this post about The Medieval Baebes ;-)

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Nu-folk and wtf is folk?

Here's some folk-related chaos that trekked across my radar this week. Bear with me, there is a point to this...

 

A lovely young band called Yngve & The Innocent got in touch, describing themselves as "a cross over between folk and Americana and a little bit into Indie - but not much". Being a sucker for a nice bit of punctuation in a band name - hence my enduring admiration for Mawkin:Causley - I fell for the ampersand first, had a bit of a listen and am looking forward to hearing them live when they next get to London.

Then there was this interview in a Welsh newspaper with Adrian McNally, manager of The Unthanks, in which he said: "Folk music is not a genre, it’s a history, a people history that’s been charted with song. In terms of how that sounds, it’s always followed function, so any notion of what it should or shouldn’t sound like is spurious."

I''ve also spent some time this week listening to Folk Radio and exploring a website called For Folk's Sake a bit. By doing these two things I've discovered that there is a  whole raft of musicians out there who are thought of by someone as falling into the "folk" category despite not sounding much like folk to me: more like wispy young things with acoustic guitars from the United States, whose bands have names alluding to the natural world.

Hence there are: Blue Roses, Caitlin Rose, The Eels, Diane Cluck, Emily and the Woods, Curran and the Wolf, Midlake, Mountain Man, Noah and the Whale (OK, I know they're not from the US), Sea of Bees, The Mountain Goats, The Wave Pictures, Tiny Birds, Treetop Flyers, Wild Beasts and Woodpigeons. My research continues but I'm really starting to think that it can only be a question of time before the Natural History Museum takes delivery of a Hairy Mumford for display.

Also, after logging into Twitter last night to find that Mumford & Sons were trending, it emerges that there's a new album on the way. So that's good. It's that punctuation again.

But it made me wonder why I've got no problem with thinking of Mumford & Sons as a folky band, whereas my subconscious is telling me that most of the acoustic guitar-wielding wisps are not. And this is what I've come up with.

I grew up listening to Steeleye Span and for me that was the *best* music, which I also found was defined as "folk". I liked other stuff too - Randy Newman, Queen, Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninov, Big Country - but whenever something a little bit similar turned up I'd compare it to Steeleye and usually find it wanting.

As a result, there are three things my subconscious seems to like in varying proportions in order happily to categorise something as folk: a traditional instrument or two, at least a nod to the song-writing tradition and a strong sense of place.

(1) The traditional instrument thing accounts for the Mumford phenomenon. A banjo qualifies - although my friend Joe Buirski says that the banjo player in the Mumfords doesn't play it properly and I nodded when he said it, not having a clue what he was on about and liking Joe's banjo playing with Kidnap Alice.

(2) By the song-writing tradition I mean new versions of old songs. Bellowhead's version of New York Girls sent a proper shiver down my spine when they started up at the beginning of the folk awards. And another delight this week was the latest plank of that band's increasingly deliberate assault on the mainstream, in the form of a new version of The Archers' theme tune (which has got to be work garnered as a result of their residency at the South Bank Centre and the fact that it's where BBC producers veg out with their children at the weekend. Serious intellectual pretensions, my arse :-).) Bellowhead's continued rise is a real pleasure to behold and they shouldn't worry about the iffy reaction of a few Radio 4 listeners. One of the mainstays of national newspaper news sections is baiting listeners of The Archers and for every one who complained there will be four or five at least who quite liked the arrangement but didn't bother mentioning it to anyone.

But someone can write their own songs and still be folky, in my book. Richard Shindell breaks my heart every time I listen to his album Courier. He sometimes writes songs from the points of view of historical figures, in the case of the link there, from the point of view of a Confederate child soldier in the civil war, and the emotional impact can be devastating. The scouts are fanning out like whippoorwills, he sings. And the sense of time and place is unshiftable. Incidentally, Fairport Convention have just covered one of his songs, Reunion Hill, on Festival Bell.

(3) The sense of place doesn't have to be my place, which is England, north and south. But it's not enough to have a guitar, long hair and sing about relationships. I really think that to qualify as folk a new song has to be about something that ties it to guts-and-grease reality: a time and place with which it will always be identified. A song can become a folk song by enduring, I guess. But I never really thought of Simon and Garfunkel as folk, in large part because they sing with American accents and Scarborough Fair seemed to be an aberration in their reportoire. Great version of a song, but not their song.

On the other side of the coin The Dropkick Murphys might qualify with this one, which was in the Scorsese movie The Departed and conjurs Boston, past and present. I wouldn't listen to that one if you don't like loud music.

A critic at one of the nationals once told me that Mumford & Sons don't move him because they only remind him of St Paul's school in Barnes, which might not have mattered much except he'd gone there himself and didn't seem very happy about it. So now I can't avoid associating them with that school either, but because I don't have any strong feelings about it one way or another, it just means that they've got a sense of place for me now as well as a banjo. And what's not to like about that?

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