RUMINANTIA REVIEWS - Release Date: APRIL 2012

QUICK QUOTES

"Virtuoso Magpie Musicians"
THE TIMES

"The nature of folk music has always made it open to embellishment, but Horses Brawl is taking the genre to new levels"
THE GUARDIAN

"Elegant, intricate and utterly engaging"
EASTERN DAILY PRESS

"Fascinating, jolly, mysterious, hypnoticm melancholic"
EARLY MUSIC TODAY

"A truly memorable sound"
BRIGHT YOUNG FOLK

"Performed with tremendous energy, virtuosity and verve"
SONGLINES

"Exciting virtuosity and sonic imagination"
DERBY TELEGRAPH

"Virtuosic and experimental...simultaneously accessible and challenging"
BBC RADIO 2

Live Reviews:
Read the Derby Telegraph in full here

Read a review of The HArvest Queen by Horses Brawl Extended Line-up in The Argus - Brighton here

Horses Brawl - Ruminantia (Brawl)

The band's fourth album is like a musical detox

Over the last decade, Laura Cannell and various collaborators have explored medieval folk and church music as Horses Brawl. Their fourth album marks the debut of a new line-up, with Cannell's conservatory training and self-taught folk chops allied to the more experimental background of Andre Bosman, who, as Hoofus, makes so-called "sine wave and sample based music".

This series of duets alternates between contemplative religiosity and - when the fiddles pick up the tempo a notch or two - the occasional, more celebratory, mode. The tracks on this album are virtuoso improvisations based on fragments of ancient tunes.

The drones of Bosman's harmonium create a spooky mood, while over the rhythms of his guitar and acoustic bass guitar, Cannell overlays melodies on recorders, hardanger fiddle (an 8/9-stringed violin, rather than the average four, used to play traditional Norwegian music), and the wonderfully named crumhorn (a Renaissance woodwind instrument).

The jaunty fiddle of opener 'Trip to Paris' is about as upbeat as the album gets, while the pace tends towards the funereal on occasions. The harmonium is reminiscent of Philip Glass's droning, haunting minimalism; while melodies are layered in a way that sometimes, to modern ears, hints at dissonance.

Horses Brawl have featured on Radio Three's Late Junction and received an Arts Council grant, and their music has a whiff of the uncompromisingly highbrow. This is pretty austere stuff, without much of the joyousness evinced by their peers, festival favourites A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

However, if you want a break from trend-chasing, too cool for school indie scenesters, or bombastic acts determined to throw the kitchen sink at you, these missives from an impossibly distant era could be just the ticket. This is musical detox, the auditory equivalent of a bracingly cold shower or a long run after a night on the sauce.

"An elemental quality flows through 'Ruminantia' from Horses Brawl. There's an unearthly, vaporous, almost elemental quality flowing through 'Ruminantia' from Horses Brawl, with contributing elements quarried from the depths of traditional and medieval, overlaid on contemporary experimental directions. A plethora of finely crafted music entwines control with improvisation – in the same moment it's ancient and embryonic, disciplined and liberated. The album was recorded in single takes and minimally mixed to create an intimate encompassing feel. That much is certainly true and it's an approach that reveals considerable presence. It takes but a second to feel you're right there with the performance. On 'Ruminantia' Laura plays fiddle, hardanger fiddle, recorders and crumhorn while Andre plays guitar, acoustic bass guitar and Indian harmonium. There's a catalytic interaction between these instruments that's on occasion gentle and calming, while at others almost quarrelsome and combative. It's those combinations that make this album inspiring and intriguing. Among the album's nine tracks there's the spirited dance 'A Trip to Paris' the lingering beauty of the love song 'Brid One Bere' the soft yet insistent engagement of 'Isabella Dansa Alta' and the sonorous depth of 'Magister'. The musical foundations that Horses Brawl use include English country dance, ancient love songs, medieval estampie dance tunes, plus influences from ancient Greece, Spain and Sweden. Around the structure of those groundworks Laura and Andre build their tunes. Ruminantia defies traditional classification as it deftly moves between musical worlds and times. Buy it - it's a treat."
FOLKWORDS (February 14, 2012) www.folkwords.com


"Horses Brawl are a Norfolk-based folk duo but their release sounds like a full band's performance. They interpreted old music, dating back to 200BC, for an old Greek tune, to folk songs, (like a Swedish polka and an English country dance tune) to medieval/Renaissance music (from anonymous, Jacob Van Eyck, Fransisca de la Torre and William Cornysh), while this sound like a newly composed concept that expands the limitations of folk dance repetition, and repetition of tunes in general to a new format of composing, or let's say sonic investigation. It start all from a folk dance tune all right, with the medieval feeling, a different form of repetition quickly participates, not as a folk dance repetition in rhythm and tune but as a sonic awareness, a form of minimalism. The harmonies used are that of certain droning chords with a few repetitive notes in the middle created by violin or Indian harmonium with the effect of the sound colours of certain medieval instruments liked personalised bowed zithers or hurdy-gurdy, at times it could be as if we heard the combination of violin, bowed zither and accordion or so which is not so. Even the guitars are used to add accents of rhythm AND a certain sound harmony with it. There can be weird accents of slashing guitar chords part of the evolution in rhythm and song, something wild, primitive and creative can be felt from within, an experience inside the material of tunes and folk dance rhythms that can become a secondary aspect for a new inspiration. It is as if certain old patterns become loops, and the music is at the same time traditional, re-felt interpretation with something of a contemporary vision by experience. The album was recorded in one single take, succeeded to sound inspired by vision. This opportunity gave gives the advantage of building up the atmosphere from track to track."
PSYCHEDELIC FOLKP ***+ www.psychedelicfolk.com

WILD LAMENT REVIEWS - Released 2009

"Impossible to pigeonhole the Horses Brawl duo, Laura Cannell and Adrian Lever. Armed with recorders, fiddle, guitar, and guest artist Philip Thorby, they build improvised fantasias from scraps of medieval chansons, folk music and other ancient history. Ancient, but not dead; your foot taps and heart sings as these virtuoso magpie musicians duck and weave, making Northumbrian hornpipes and Guillaume de Machaut share common ground. A breath of fresh air"
THE TIMES 4/5 stars

"Horses Brawl, the very talented Norfolk-based duo of Laura Cannell and Adrian Lever have been together for about five years. With the former on recorders and fiddle and the latter on acoustic guitar. A guest on this album is early music specialist Philip Thorby on viol. Together they produce a truly memorable sound. Entirely instrumental, the music certainly has it's roots in traditional folk in the broadest sense. The guest's specialty says much as it has a very definite "early" feel. I say "feel" deliberately because Laura and Adrian cleverly re-work or indeed rewrite tunes from at least as far back as the thirteen hundreds. On many occasions the pieces are woven together from fragments and phrases of early music that are sometimes quite disparate. In fact the breadth of the source material is fascinating, from fourteenth century Italian Court music though traditional English folk to Bulgarian wedding tunes. The musicianship is excellent and through use of a variety of playing techniques, very varied. Tourdion, the first track is a good example of what's to come. Blending French, Spanish and Irish tunes in a delightful interwoven composition. Track two has two fine maggots (repeating tunes), the second of which is played quite ferociously, joined by a fine Northumbrian pipe tune. This is a great album. Don't let any doubts about "ancient music" put you off, this is no hollow replica, this has all the wit and fire of music created yesterday."
BRIGHT YOUNG FOLK

"Norfolk duo Horses Brawl are causing a stir in the lofty world of traditional folk by bowing their guitars. Their third album, Wild Lament, sees them turn fragments of Bulgarian wedding dances, Irish minuets and Bolivian melodies into chilling experimental art – via the medium of "preparation". The pair meld renaissance styles with pop music by adding stickers and clothes pegs to their fiddles and recorders. The nature of folk music has always made it open to embellishment, but adding modern paraphernalia in this fashion is taking the genre to new levels."
THE GUARDIAN

DINDIRIN REVIEWS - Released 2007

"In the morning I arose, and I walked among the meadows. There I met a nightingale who was singing in the treetops: Dindirin dindirin dindirin dana dindirindin. "Dindirin", the song of the nightingale passing messages between two lovers, sets the stage for English, Spanish and Italian music from the 12th to the 19th century, including an excerpt from the "Carmina Burana" and the well known medieval estampie "La Rotta". Horses Brawl is a Norfolk based instrumental duo which had been formed in 2003. Laura Cannell and Adrian Lever play (bowed) guitar, recorder, crumhorn and fiddle, their second album "Dindirin" again is a collection of early and traditional music. At times experimental and virtuosic, they fuse folk, traditional and baroque music with a contemporary feel. Laura and Adrian take no prisoners, e.g. the traditional East Anglian fiddle tune "Shave the Donkey" sounds like a Scandinavian nyckelharpa piece. Thus Horses Brawl and "Dindirin" never get boring. Search it out!"
FOLKWORLD.DE

"Fifty years ago, early music was largely forgotten. Its rehabilitation paralleled the folk revival and a new generation of musicians is now recognising early music and folk have common roots. Classically-trained Laura Cannell and folk guitarist Adrian Lever, manage to create haunting, strange but extraordinarily beautiful music with just a guitar, a fiddle and some recorders and crumhorns, blending both traditions into a unique, new style. It felt as if we were present at the birth of the first great musical movement of the 21st century. Their music is best heard live but, failing that, features on their second CD, Dindirin."
LIVE REVIEW Brighton Komedia, The Argus

HORSES BRAWL DEBUT REVIEWS - Released 2005

"Gymnastic anachronisms from terpsichorean trio "The music of this trio, with Laura Cannell on recorder and crumhorn, Adrian Lever on guitar and Jonathan Manton on cello, takes as its starting point the dance music of medieval and Renaissance Europe, performed with tremendous energy, virtuosity and verve. It's clear that each performer has achieved a level of technical assurance and experience, and their familiarity with elements of European folk adds an extra dimension to the sound. Romanian, Bulgarian and English Traditional dances rub shoulders with material such as 'Douce Dame Jolie', a virelai by the seminal French composer and poet Guillaume de Machaut (performed here as an instrumental), and happy experiments with sound colour and technique means that it is sometimes impossible to tell exactly who is doing what. Cannell's fleet recorder scoots along above lively ostinato figures and rambunctious strumming, while slower pieces carefully balance emotion and poise. The bouncy good humour that marks much of the playing here is clearly founded on deep knowledge and long study, yet there is neither a slavish attempt to imitate folk styles, nor have the players taken out shares in the deeply irritating 'Merrie Englande Inc'. Instead they have come up with a solid piece of work which bears repeated listening, and makes me want to see them live – not simply to find out how they produce such fascinating and intricate textures with a band that is only three members strong."
SONGLINES

"Their playing mothods were highly experimental, Horses Brawl's performance was wonderful. It all seemed so natural as if the instruments have always been played like that. This combined with their choice of tunes and fun banter made it well worth making the effort to see them live. Indeed, unless you've had the chance to see them live, it's impossible to appreciate just how some of their wonderful sounds are made. A fantastic, vibrant performance, I'd strongly recommend their CD"
TRADITION MAGAZINE Live Album launch review