Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Long may life be an endearing and ongoing succession of finding music in which constantly catches the listener out, providing an unseen rope trick on which to balance upon and eventually fall hopelessly and utterly for whilst providing no worthless safety net for shattered illusions. Music must succeed or fail on its terms and for that it remains a true and exciting form of art.
To come across The Hut People at any time could be seen as fortuitous, like finding a pristine bound manuscript of Beowulf, to find them when least expected is to find the same book but with an author’s preface and a full guide on how they imagined it played out. The eclectic folk duo’s, Sam Pirt and Gary Hammond, latest album is something in which to savour and be tickled by, to realise that Time occasionally needs no words to express determined emotion, to bypass the grind and head straight for the scenic and the survey the picturesque afforded all by the world, in short, Cabinet of Curiosities is a marvel of the unexpected to be unlocked and all secrets revealed.
Cabinet of Curiosities has the wonderful effect of peaking an interest in an area that you might not have explored before, like finding a map to a lost realm and finding that you remove yourself from everything you know and go off armed only with a compass and a week’s supply of socks, nothing stands in the way in the end of fulfilling a unknown dream.
Being lyric-less is no distraction to a venture that is powerful and adept and sparking a symphony of dreams within the tired and weary but inquisitive mind and throughout Cabinet of Curiosities, the natural emotion of inquisitive wonder is what gives an allure of brilliance to the music. When a piece of music can inspire the listener to make their own set of possible lyrics to match their mood it can only be interesting and superbly unconventional.
With tracks such as Vasen, the entertaining Polska Efter Hins Lars, Jean’s Hut in the Bog, the gravity defying Karen’s Birthday Tune and Song For Chris giving the soul more food for exploration than a voyager happily lost on the trail of the unpredicted and surprising unanticipated, Cabinet of Curiosities is a joy to listen to.
Ian D. Hall