Tilham

Blowzabella

Blowzabella is a genuinely unique band that makes an inimitable, driving, drone-based wall-of-sound played with a fabulous sense of melody, rhythmic expertise and sheer feeling They compose their own music which is influenced by English and European traditional folk music and song – a shared culture with ancient roots.

Andy Cutting – diatonic button accordion;

Jo Freya – vocals, saxophones, clarinet;

Paul James – vocals, bagpipes, saxophones;

David Shepherd – violin;

Barn Stradling – bass guitar;

Jon Swayne – bagpipes, saxophones.

Many of their tunes are "standards" in the modern British/European folk repertoire and are played by people all over the world. Bands across Europe who experiment with folk music often cite Blowzabella as a major influence. Much loved and respected, there is no one else quite like them.

NEW ALBUM

We released our 14th album "Tilham" in December 2022.

When the band started in 1978 we played all sorts of folk tunes from around Britain and Europe. As the band progressed we started to find our own voice and by the middle 1980s we were starting to compose our own music. The band took a break in the 1990s and came back together in 2002. Since then the majority of what we play live and on albums are compositions by the band.

Basically Blowzabella is a dance band and so we write tunes in the style of popular traditional dances that are found around Britain and Europe – jigs, polkas, waltzes, mazurkas, bourrées, schottisches... and more. All 6 of us compose so we are fortunate to have a lot of material to choose from. It's tough getting one of your tunes accepted by the whole band. We've all had that tumble-weed-blowing across-the-sand moment when you play a tune you spent a long time finessing, only to find the rest of the band don't like it! The advantage though is that the quality standard is high and maybe that explains why so many of our tunes have become "standards" in the modern folk repertoire in Britain, Europe and beyond. That sometimes overshadows another thing the band love to do, which is to arrange and play traditional English folk dance tunes an songs. We've always done this and have got thousands of people outside the UK dancing to them.

'Tilham' is the name of a farm in Somerset that looks out over the countryside to Glastonbury Tor. We were lucky that the owners were so welcoming and let us record the album in one of their splendid outbuildings. Blowzabella founder member Jon Swayne is Somerset born and bred and lives and makes bagpipes nearby, so we've always had a connection with the place.

The album was recorded in two hugely enjoyable and mammoth recording sessions by Bristol-based sound engineer Joe Garcia. After the pandemic lockdowns it felt like a default re-set and got back to the basics of what Blowzabella is all about. Great tunes for dancing.

Everyone in the band has written music for it and we're showing our English folk roots a bit with a few less well known traditional English tunes. Enjoy!