Bellowhead and Friends

Here's the promise Bellowhead made when they first got together, overseen by cornerstone members John Spiers and Jon Boden, in the early '00s — they would seek out mostly anonymous folk material (the band is keen to stress the public ownership of uncredited songs) and soup it up with their own arrangements and tunes for a 21st century audience. Not a purist's angle, by any means, but a fascinating tack that produced such intriguing fare as "London Town" and "The Outlandish Knight", both of which appeared on confident full-length debut Burlesque (2006). As you set out on your Bellowhead odyssey, expect to meet some of their friends along the way. Belshazzar's Feast and Setsubun Bean Unit join Bellowhead in Next Steps.

One of the keys to Bellowhead's success has been their evident love of a good old folky knees-up — salty, rollicking tracks like "Roll Her Down the Bay" and "Whiskey Is the Life of Man" play best when consumed elbow-deep in the spit n' sawdust of an ale-house lock-in. That's not to say that a more subtle emotional power is never generated by either the band or its members' spin-off projects: here Benji Kirkpatrick mesmerizes with his tale of "The Holland Handkerchief" and Paul Flood conjures a sideways kind of melancholy on "Master Kilby". Flood crops up again, with his experimental hat on, with "Rettsu Kissu" by out-there "Japanese traditional space funk" outfit, Setsubun Bean Unit.

Brandishing so much raw energy that audiences have literally cracked dancefloors at past gatherings, Bellowhead has done much to reclaim lost folk from dusty obscurity and deliver it to ravenous fans who have grown disillusioned with more run-o-the-mill sounds. What Pentangle and Fairport Convention did for traditional British folk in the '60s, Bellowhead have done in the '00s. Squeezebox player and co-founder John Spiers earned a masters in genetics at Cambridge (and his father is a morris dancer), trumpeter Andy Mellon has a background in South African folk, and percussionist Pete Flood keeps among his time-keeping arsenal "four highly rare and precious wooden spoons used in the Turkish Karagoz puppet theatre" — so prepare your pop-ravaged ears for a real treat. And to fill out the Bellowhead picture we've added select tracks by associated bands and splinter projects.