Voices From The Empty Moor (Songs Of Anne Briggs)

Voices From the Empty Moor seeks to honor the mystery and beauty of Anne Briggs' music while maintaining its own unique perspective, foregrounding powerful emotion and, hopefully, magical transformation. Bassist, composer and arranger devin hoff has been intensively studying the music of Anne Briggs for over a decade. Briggs was a leading light of the 1960"s English folk scene, a gifted songwriter and improvisor, as well as an amateur musicologist who revived traditional English, Scottish, and Irish Traveler songs with an unpretentious approach that perhaps presaged the rebellion of punk as much as it honored tradition. The arrangements here include collaborations with musician friends that share a fascination with mining specific folk forms for universal and timeless truths; singers Julia Holter, Shannon Lay, Sharon Van Etten and Emmett Kelly; oud player Alejandro Farha; saxophonist Howard Wiley and drummer Jim White.