North Sea Radio Orchestra - Birds (oof!)

NSRO’s eponymous first CD was easily my favourite discovery of 2007.  The term ‘Chamber Folk’ was, and remains, somewhat inescapable, but here is an ensemble in conception, composition and application that legitimately fit the bill.  This is music that really couldn’t exist without an appreciation of either the classical song or folk tradition.  Composer Craig Fortnam has a touch of the genius possessed by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s Simon Jeffes.  They share a knack for joyous, almost naive melodies that drip with a quality that is, well... as English as a buttered crumpet.  They also both have an immediately recognizable style, and I’m certainly getting a sense of the parameters of Fortnam’s compositional range – at least for this ensemble.  Again, most of the songs are settings of texts from the lions of English verse, such as Blake, Hardy, Tennyson and Chaucer.  In many respects Birds feels like the second instalment in a longer work rather than a distinct text.  The revelation of discovery is near impossible to replicate but the fact that Birds sounds so similar to the first record is by no means a disappointment or criticism.  After all Dickens’ met his public’s Great Expectations in weekly instalments.