The New Scorpion Band
The New Scorpion Band consists used for of Tim Laylock, who is well known in the English folk scene after stints with the Albion Band and the Melstock Band, and for his six solo albums. Besides this he has participated as an actor and theatre musician in various conventional theatres. He's a specialist in songs, traditions and literature of the West Country, and made a cd on Dorset dialect poetry. He wrote plays on West Country themes with additional music. His ideas form the basis for the repertoire of the New Scorpion Band. He plays concertinas, melodeons and tenor horn. We also have Brian Gulland. He's mostly known as a former Gryphon band-member. Gryphon started as a medieval folk(rock) band and evolvedin to a unique psych-folkrock band based upon English traditions. Their second and third albums especially are remarkable documents. After that he worked for a while with the French folkrock band Mallicorne. After some occasional projects he has now joined the New Scorpion Band where he plays harmonium, bassoon, cor anglais, tuba, dulcimer, percussion and sings. Thirdly we have Robin Jeffrey, specialised in historical and traditional plucked instruments. He participated with many groups, like The Consort of Musick, The Scholars. More recently he worked on Monteverdi, Purcell and Handel operas, in some theatre and movie productions. Besides that he founded The Burning Bush, a group who performs Jewish traditional music. He plays English guitar, guitar, banjo, mandolin, laouto, sings. Fourth member is Sharon Lindo, violinist at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music. She played in some of the medieval bands with Robin Jeffrey amongst various others (Duffay Collective, Collegium Musicum 90, Chiaroscuro,..), and worked very often as a traditional theatre musician. Here she plays violin and viola, guitar, trombone and sings. Last member of this quintet is Robert White, a multi-instrumentalist with a long list of credits as composer and arranger for film and television, and his work in various conventional theatres. He was asked to play Uilean pipes on recordings of many famous folk musicians (L.McKennit, Ralph McTell,..). Here he plays Northumbrian, Border and Union pipes, cornet, french horn, tuba, whistles, flute, ney, bodhran, percussion and sings.
1.Private 
The New Scorpion Band : Folksongs and tunes from the British Isles (UK,1998)***° (ex)
For me The New Scorpion Band is the best example for how traditional folk music should be executed. Nothing is just written or performed as superfluous. Many band members have experience in historical knowledge, have experience to create theatre-like transformations of songs, and arrange the songs in a convincing way, with beautiful harmonic vocal arrangements. People who know me know I I complain a lot about traditional folk, because I began to hate all the mediocre examples I've heard. I like music, not specifically folk, but I often had the impression many folk lovers (especially in Belgium) just love folk music, not music. But the New Scorpion Band I am able to enjoy just because of the harmonic performance, and because they know what they’re doing, and they compromise to make each song sound interesting.
Even a few jigs from the Thomas Hardy family collection are perfectly arranged together with bassoon, which makes them work best. There are a few amusing countryside songs, with nice vocal arrangements and joyful energy, like the fisherman’s song “Sailing over the Dogger bank”, or theatre like fantasies with some element of drama in them, like “Heaven’s bar”. They also include a very unusual version of “John Barleycorn” collected by Cecil Sharp from John Stafford of Bishops Sutton in Somerset. It has extraordinary vocal arrangements. I personally very much like the ballad "Blow the Candles out" (also known as "the London Apprentice").
This album of all three is closest to the country side folk traditions. Recommended especially to traditional folk music lovers.
2.Private The New Scorpion Band : The Downfall of Pears (UK,2004)***°' (perf)
The liner notes say that for this album Sharon introduced a trombone as a new instrument to the group’s instrument repertoire. Compared to the first album, there’s even more development apart from this.
The album is introduced -according to the same notes- as a kind of partly fictive journeyl with music, including some old pictures as illustration. The collection of songs dug firstly into the collection of the Copper family of Rottingdean, with songs of protest against the hard economic times that followed the defeat of Bonaparte. Also are added some Scottish dance tunes using Lowland pipes, and a few more laments and other old songs. And it ends with a complex story about Lord Bateman travels in and beyond Turkey. This 13 minute track uses some Middle Eastern instruments with improvisation, to illustrate this travel, in a very descriptive way, and with many musical ideas on how to do this. Not many groups make such an effort to arrange a song. (I remember Pentangle once made other interesting arrangements of "Jack Orion" on their Cruel Sister album, and there are a few more examples, but not too many).
The experience of the group in theatre music here is used to bring conceptual structures into the music which uplifts the CD release to the level of let’s say literature. The arrangements are also more worked out than the debut. Some tracks even have orchestra or brass band creating something very different from the usual folk, with an “old flavour”. This approach makes the release very varied but still consistent as well. The way this is achieved shows how talented this band is. Recommended !
3.Private The New Scorpion Band : Out on the ocean (UK,2004)**°
Incredible but true, but the New Scorpion Band succeeded in releasing a second release within one year of a similar concept. It might be supposed to be a concept of a journey on a boat and as life at sea, but perhaps it’s just a collection of songs that fit well together. Boatsongs, shipmen’ songs, fishermen’ songs are numurous in the UK. It is logical for the UK, being an island that many eyes look towards the sea. While in Scotland they might focus more on the near shores, the English had their eyes upon the ocean.
This release used 27 titles as inspiration, compiled into 18 tracks, for another 76 minutes of music.
A few times I feel myself on the shore, or living with the music, or like singing with the boatmen, but there are also various moments where I don’t have that “live” and “I’m there” feeling, and the tune itself takes over. This I find one of the biggest dangers in playing folk and when compiling many jigs, reels and songs together. I like the song and the melancholic arrangement interpretation of “All things are quite silent”, sung by Sharon. I also like the idea of how the vocal arrangements are done, because they give me the feeling of fishermen celebrating-before-the-ship-leaves-shore. But these arrangements are also kept more minimal compared to what I heard on the other releases.
Myself I’m not such a folk freak, so I find this release, the least attractive effort of the group. The idea and presentation however is excellent. When you make yourself ready to join the fishermen's mood, the album still works far better than any documentary.
