Sam Lee
Album: A Ground Of It's Own
Label: The Next Collective
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.samleesong.co.uk

Sam's a self-styled agent-provocateur-cum-mover-and-shaker (he also runs The Nest Collective) who with unbridled energy and enthusiasm brings an uncompromisingly original vision to traditional song. But be wary of mistaking his pioneering spirit for mere arrogance. For Sam also happens to be a very fine singer, driven by an insatiable capacity for exhaustive research (he regards song collecting as his main mission in life).

Sam's debut CD has been a while in the making, and although it has its eccentricities for sure, it comes across as a seriously considered collection of unusual repertoire sensitively handled with passion and conviction and a refreshing lack of pompous self-importance. Sam makes it abundantly clear that the songs themselves are the driving force, and his philosophy is that by focusing on their inner pulse and rhythm any attendant instrumental "collage" can empower their emotion and sentiment. This might seem like a bit of a contradiction while you're sitting entranced by the result, but it certainly provides food for thought.

Ground Of Its Own makes a good case for what Sam terms his "homeless shelter of songs and sounds", where the palette unashamedly embraces fiddle, cello, viola, clarinet and piano alongside both the charmingly rustic (banjo, jew's harp, shruti box, autoharp) and the urban (trumpet), the two worlds colliding in the use of primitive percussion and samples (musicians, singers, birdsong), all under the expert guiding hand of producer Gerry Diver. Oh, and there's not a single guitar in earshot!…

The resulting textures display both intelligence and serendipity. Their hand-crafted feel reflects that of the rather Partch-like percussion instruments (tank drums, gas cylinders), peculiarly appropriate for acting out the drama of songs which themselves might have been similarly hand-crafted, indeed fashioned from the hands of travellers, from whom Sam has derived much of his source material and inspiration (he served a unique four-year apprenticeship under the late Stanley Robertson).

Sam has deliberately selected songs with whose source he has a close connection, like The Jew's Garden; he brings a beautiful tension to these songs, especially in their early scene-setting stages, and this gives way to a frisson of excitement as the action builds (check out the plaintive Wild Wood Amber and Goodbye My Darling too). Inevitably, there are some slightly awkward moments (eg. The Tanyard Side's sampled nightingale is a touch too forwardly-placed - this ain't The Pines Of Rome!). But these are easily outweighed by the disc's many treasurable experiments and the more simply scored passages (like the betrayal ballad Northlands, intoned to the spectral rattling of Chris Coe's hammer dulcimer), where Sam's personal vision proves very compelling indeed

David Kidman