Ragged Kingdom [CD]

Twenty-one years after June Tabor and Oysterband collaborated on the classic 'Freedom And Rain' album they've reconvened to record the magnificent 'Ragged Kingdom'.

June Tabor & Oysterband's 'Freedom And Rain' remains one of the finest collaborative albums of the past three decades. Bringing together the immense, individual talents of the sublime English folk singer Tabor and the raucous roots rebels Oysterband, it produced something quite new and enduring. When they reunited last year to perform at fRoots Magazine's 30th birthday party at The Roundhouse, they felt the chemistry spark again. And 21 years on, they've made the brand new 'Ragged Kingdom', a brilliant, belated follow-up that mixes the traditional with the contemporary in startling fashion.

The trad. 'Bonny Bunch Of Roses' rubs shoulders with PJ Harvey's 'That Was My Veil'; a lush, acoustic version of Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' nestles beside the Scottish trad. song '(When I Was No But) Sweet Sixteen'. Stylistically, the participants have each grown even more in stature in the intervening years. June becoming an eclectic song interpreter, drawing inspiration from many sources, and Oysterband systematically re-exploring their own acoustic folk roots. Together, they bring all of this added artistic weight to the project yet with a deftness of touch.

"The spark" says Oysterband's Ian Telfer "is we really feel we do something together which is different from what we do as separate acts. There is something in the combination of June's exquisite dark voice with the supple energy of Oysterband that greatly pleases us. June comes to recording fantastically well prepared: every nuance of meaning and feeling considered in advance and plotted in her mind. Then she stands in the studio and delivers one perfect take, like an act of Chinese calligraphy. Or maybe Chinese cooking: the work is all in the preparation. We deliberately left some of the tracks just a little raw: the current zeitgeist d