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