TURIN BREAKS AND JEREMY DUTCHER - CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL

If staying power means anything, it surely applies to the band Turin Breaks. It’s now 21 years since their second album, ‘Ether Song’ was released and reached number 4 in the best-selling charts. Here they gave us their full track list and the crowd loved it. They followed up their success with the album ‘The Optimist’ Formed by old mates Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian when the pair were only 16, they wrote their first song ‘Future Boy’ when they were still in school. Joined these days by fellow guitarist Rob Allum and drummer Eddie Myer, they make a sonically exciting sound with the freshness of newly mown grass (a rarity in Cherry Hinton Park). That latter album was nominated for the Mercury Prize and you can see why. The band’s songs are catchy, endlessly inventive and guaranteed full-crowd pleasers. This was a class act with that guarantee of staying power – nobody left till the last chords rang out on Stage 1.

In contrast to Turin Break’s joyous rock ‘n roll was solo artist Jeremy Dutcher. His set was hauntingly beautiful and full of a hopeful nostalgia to his First Nation roots in Canada. In 1907 folk lore collectors came across the Wolastoqiyik people and recorded their songs on wax cylinders. These were later rediscovered and Dutcher who is a member of that people used his classical music training to restore and re-interpret those distant voices. He told us that he calls them collaborative compositions. Singing in English  and the Wolastoqiyik language (only 500 speakers are left), using piano, guitar and drums, Dutcher creates the most magical of sounds by duetting with the recorded voices of his ancestors. The effect is thrilling, alchemical and tremendously moving. His first duet with the 117 year-old ancestor was a spinetingling chant to bring in the spirits. It brought a welcome shiver to the hot and sticky tent that is Stage 1. Next a traditional song of welcome, a gorgeously conceived lullaby and more upbeat numbers. Dutcher’s lovely tenor voice was in perfect blend with his recorded forebears. Totally at ease with his audience, he made the point that we should listen to the words of the usually silenced indigenous peoples – there is so much philosophy to learn. I can’t think of a better way to learn it.