Kitty Empire 

Trembling Bells and Bonnie Prince Billy: The Marble Downs – review

The maverick from Kentucky meets his match in Scotland's Trembling Bells, writes Kitty Empire
  
  


Fans of folk adventurer Bonnie Prince Billy will be used to the Kentuckian's promiscuous collaborating, but this is one of his most eccentric assignations. Featuring the posh-damsel-gone-bad vocals of Lavinia Blackwall and Alex Neilson's psych-jazz take on medieval music, Scotland's Trembling Bells provide a genre-bending backdrop for Will Oldham's mischief. Sometimes it's hair-raisingly great, as on their fierce take on "Riding", a great old tune of Oldham's, or the surging coda of "Ain't Nothing Wrong With A Little Longing". Elsewhere, this incandescent music can stray into baroque perversity, and the marriage of Oldham's quaver and Blackwall's stentorian warble can feel a little forced.

 

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