LOS SALVADORES

 

The Sweeps Festival in Rochester. It’s a folky event full of people blacked up wearing top hats. Don’t worry. It’s not some kind of racist convention full of people longing for the days of “The Black and White Minstrel Show”. Oh no. They’re dressed as soot covered chimney sweeps. And the good news is there’s not a Dick Van Dyke in sight.

It’s Saturday afternoon and Los Salvadores are on stage in the white marquee in the Castle Gardens which is nestled alongside the once mighty, now crumbling Norman edifice which peers over this particular Medway town and beyond.

Los Salvadores have been doing the rounds for some time now. They started off as a punk act. Now, after numerous line-up changes, they have emerged, butterfly like, as a contemporary folk act with, among other instruments in their line up, a French Horn. Not many other bands can make such a boast.

This folk band are unlike other bands with which you might more readily compare them (the obvious being Bellowhead). Rather than arranging and re-arranging existing folk songs, Los Salvadores prefer to take folk stories and legends from Kent’s varied past and turn them into brand new songs.

And so going to a gig with this band on stage is like sitting in on a history lesson. Where else would you get to hear about how Kent was formed (the gory origins of Kent’s white horse are detailed in “Red Blood on a White Horse”), what happened when the French invaded the port of Sandwich (“On St. Bartholomew’s Day”) or what came of a shipwrecked mariner when a landlord in Oare refused him entry to his pub (“Holly Shore”)?

Other songs are less concerned with local history. They concern themselves with anything from an autobiographical piece about the nature of bands losing and gaining members (“The Mistress of Distress and the Incredible Shrinking Man” and “The Last Soiree”), a drinking song somewhat gentler than the Germanic versions (or those of The Doors or Divine Comedy) you might be used to, right through to – and I really do kid you not here – the description of a long railway train as seem from above by a pigeon “Old Diesel Engine”).

 

 

There’s an appreciative and ever growing audience here. Some, no doubt, are fans of old (the mother-in-law, for one sits besides me and loves every minute) and other are being converted even as I write.

Los Salvadores’ music is a richly textured, complicated time-signatured, gorgeous thing. It’s difficult to believe there just four of them: Gareth the lead singer, Vicky On French horn, vocals and a slight flourish on the accordion, Marf on guitar and vocals and Hannah on the violin – or fiddle as we should probably call it in this context. And it’s only when you see them live you realise that something’s missing. Well, in theory at least: they don’t actually have a drummer. Nor, it seems, do they need one.

Somehow – and I wouldn’t be surprised if some strange form of dark arts were involved in this – this unusual array of instruments: the mini-est of orchestras disguised as a four piece folk act fills the makeshift room, accompanying a strange fusion of folk singing and punkish backing vocals. It really is quite beautiful.

And when the instruments cut away – as they often do – to reveal just close part harmonies? Well, we’re on to something else: a world of Renaissance music from the days of Palistrina and co. Now there’s a composer you wouldn’t expect to be name checked on a site like RockKent.com.

The result of instruments, voices, lyrics and tunes is a fantastical blend of folk, fiction, darkness and humour. There can be no better way to spend a bank holiday weekend – especially when there are so many bars nearby. Mine’s a pint please. Thanks very much.

 

Disclaimer: All comments and opinions are those of the writer.

 

30/04/2011 • Sweeps Festival, Rochester

By Stephen Morris • Photos by

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