False Lights is the new project from folk visionaries Jim Moray and Sam Carter. In development behind closed doors for several months, a shared love of folk and heavy guitar music has produced a distinct sound which has more to do with Radiohead than Steeleye Span: an explosion of loud, electric, guitar-driven folk for the 21st century.
The four tracks on the False Lights EP give a flavour of what to expect from this intriguing band live.
The first track, 'Skewball', is a song recorded originally by A.L.Lloyd in the early 1960s, and then again by Steeleye Span and Martin Carthy in the early 1970s.bThe second track, 'Polly On The Shore' was collected from George 'Pop' Maynard in West Hoathly, Sussex in the 1950s. In False Lights' hands it becomes a brooding alt-rock anthem, with strings, ebow guitars and a masterful vocal from Sam. The third track, 'The Maid Of Australia' is closely identified with Norfolk through both Harry Cox and Walter Pardon from whom it was collected, and Peter Bellamy who recorded the song in 1979 making it famous amongst a folk revival audience. Finally, 'Crossing The Bar' is one of the last poems written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in which he compares death to crossing the sandbar between the tide or river of life and the sea that lies beyond. Set to music by American old-time fiddler Rani Arbo, False Lights give the song a grand scale marrying English church music with stadium-sized guitars, swooping fiddles and Brazilian rhythms.