Music - Part 398 - artPACKT

The artPACKT Collective - Acoustic

CD/DL

Out Now

 

London based Scots trio release their first collaborative album. 

The artPACKT Collective is three singer songwriters who have been making individual waves in the music scene for quite some time.  Now Rosie Bans, Anna MacDonald and Mike Nesbit have joined forces to record an album together which has been crowdfunded to be taken out on tour.

Comprising of cover versions, traditional songs and original material, the twelve tracks on Acoustic represent the folk/blues styles that have been making critics sit up and listen.  From a version of Wild Mountain Thyme the Francis McPeake song based on the poem The Braes Of Balquhither which opens the album, to cover versions of Fairport Convention (Matty Groves) the album transcends beautiful songs made stunning.

Bans’ piano led contributions Identity and Westbound Ghosts (from last year brilliant Be Bold EP) are exciting jazz funk affairs sexually charged into a 2015 female version of Hue And Cry which ooze life and sentiment. Doin’ It For The Love perhaps sums up the whole idea behind the album – make an album, sell it on tour and use the profits to continue touring.  It’s a simple self-perpetuating idea.

The country bluegrass style of Nesbit is comforting and warm whilst maintaining a strong masculine element to marry up to his female partners.  Paint, El Frida and Travelling Blues unfold wondrous tales, and simple humanity and wanting through an often American sounding vocal.  His guitar playing is subtle and effectual.

If Bans is at one end of the vocal scale then MacDonald is at the other.  Almost angelic, she sweeps and glides beautifully through her inputs with tones that melt your heart and leave you exhausted throughout.  Fire Beach is gorgeous and the adaption of Matty Groves loses all instruments bar her guitar.  The folk ballad detailing an adulterous rendezvous is compelling to say the least.

Album closer, the title track from Anna’s You Held Out Your Hand EP is again beautiful.  Her voice sweeping through a Gaelic folk number to once more leave your quite breathless.

8.5/10

 

Links
artPACKT website
artPACKT on Twitter
artPACKT on Facebook
Rose Bans on hiapop


Published on Louder Than War 22/02/15 - here

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