Low Culture

Jim Moray | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 24, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Niag Records
• ASIN: B001B929XA
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #361,056 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars New Folk Stylings From A Talented Musician, August 22, 2010

By 

Bob Drake "BobDrake" (Bronx, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Low Culture (Audio CD)

My first introduction to Jim Moray (pronounced Murray in the UK) was the YouTube video of him singing Across the Western Ocean and I was hooked. (Compare it with the traditional John Doyle version for contrast.) I cannot believe that I am the first one to review Jim's albums on this side of the pond. (Interesting that Jim's sister, Jackie Oates, has a review posted for Hyperboreans before him. Both are very talented.) Low Culture won the fRoots Magazine critics award as best album for 2008 -- the award was presented by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull -- and the BBC review on the Amazon UK Low Culture album page pretty much says it all.

Starting with the African thumb piano riffs of Leaving Australia, through the folk-rock of The Rufford Park Poachers, the reworking of XTC's All You Pretty Girls, the murder ballad Lucy Wan (featuring verses by the rapper Bubbz), through to the 11th hidden track, Adam Ant Alone In His Padded Cell, this is a remarkable piece of work. His first release, from 2001, an EP entitled I Am Jim Moray is impossible to find, and, he claims, not worth it. (He is not really Jim Moray. It is a pseudonym. But he wanted to start afresh.) Two of the tunes from that EP as well as a single from his Sprig of Thyme single, appear on a collection album Beginners Guide intended for non-UK markets. If you don't want to start with Low Culture you might want to start there. You can download his albums from Amazon as well.

Besides performing updated folk numbers such as these, Jim is also a Morris dancer, a member of the Bristol Morrismen. As such he appears in the next season of the BBC series Skins which is filmed in Bristol, UK.