From the sweet, pregnant a capella duet that makes up the intro to ‘The Rustle of her Dress’ to the ecstatic shouts that close ‘Balalika’(sic), this debut EP by Scarlett in the Wilderness is an exuberant, playful, free-spirited joy. A sextet which seems to have taken delight in plunging two slightly dotty sounding English gals into the East European carnival-folk tradition, their early performances have elicited swooning reviews and invitations to prestigious folk festivals, and it only takes a brief listen to ‘Edible but Suspicious’ to hear why.
‘The Rustle of her Dress’ opens the EP superbly, displaying with careless abundance the musical riches on offer. Hannah Murphy, apart from being a more than useful accordionist and flautist, sings in a languorous, nostalgic style which is part Gypsy folk, part cabaret; her voice conjures up adjectives from the table: creamy, plummy, well-marbled. If it were food, it would be a Gu dessert.
The band is lucky to boast several master musicians. Flora Curzon is an effortless, classically-trained violinist (That fact doesn’t surprise me, as one or two of their tunes recall the Slavonic dances of Dvorak or Brahms) who sings wonderfully light countermelodies in a tiny soprano. Klezmer saxophonist Jack Durtnall brings an unexpected but brilliant touch of traditional jazz to the song-he often sounds like he’s playing a muted trumpet from the Twenties. This should be alien in the context of a slab of whirling, breathless Balkan folk music, but it sounds inevitable.
Every song on the record has something worth hearing. I especially like the singing at the beginning of ‘Down by the Wreck’, which sounds like Delibes’ Flower Duet transplanted into a lazy French chanson. ‘You, Me and the Sealife Creatures’ (I did mention they sounded dotty, didn’t I?) accelerates like a Greek wedding song, with Murphy sounding scarily like Liza Minnelli at certain points. ‘The Tango (Or Why Chastity Can’t Play Anything)’ epitomises the hedonistic glamour of Scarlett’s world-a world of flaming red dresses, cocktails with names that should only be seen in top-shelf magazines, knee-shattering dancing sessions and a dash of dangerous sex to top the night off. The only jarring note is at the end: Nick Pitt may be an excellent musician, but bass solos should only be played in the privacy of your own home, the age of consent should be eighty and even then they should only happen with parental agreement.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest I can go ahead and enjoy closer ‘Balalika’ which brings things to a tuneful, merry close, bursting with juicy three-part harmony, fiddling of divine virtuosity and more Bacchanalian dancing. To sum up: forget the title of the record. Scarlett in the Wilderness is simply scrummy.