Traditional Music Maker magazine
Elle Osborne ~ Testimony (9th House HCD1)
This young lady was recommended to me by someone who'd seen her at Sidmouth, on whom she'd made an impression, disproportionate to the brevity of the sighting! Though based in Sussex of late, she spends much time in Antipodean climes, where she is very popular. This is her début CD, and a well nigh unique album it is - just Elle, her voice and her fiddle for the most part (with very occasional guests on cello or extra fiddle), recorded closely and intimately to match her distinctive performance style.
She's one of the relatively rare breed of fiddle-playing singers who sing while playing, too (though self-taught, she admits to having gained encouragement and inspiration from Barry Dransfield). As represented here, Elle's repertoire comprises mainly traditional tunes and songs, many of the latter having been absorbed during her upbringing in north-east Lincolnshire. She also tackles the work of more recent songwriters - her unaccompanied rendering of Frank Higgins' Testimony Of Patience Kershaw is outstanding, penetrating to the heart of the character with heaps of insight, and similarly that of Richard Thompson's Withered And Died conveys the innate pain of the lyric with a vividness with which I completely identify (purists should note that in doing so, Elle also takes some allowable liberties with the song's original, admittedly imperfect structure, but hey this is the oral tradition ain't it?). She also sings John Conolly's Ranters' Wharf (appropriately, as her parents and grandparents were involved in the Cleethorpes/Grimsby folk scene).
Elle's integrity is abundantly clear throughout the album, though; her singing is full of spirit, invested with a personal brand of expressiveness that's unprettified, fresh and thus all the more welcome. Perhaps her down-to-earth response stems partly from the strain of singing-on-the-edge, where passionate commitment triumphs over any deficiency in formal technique, and partly from her diction, decorated with unashamed smidgens of regional accent (a southern glottal stop here, a northern vowel sound there). For starters, listen to the way Katy Cruel just tumbles out, then sample the poise and dramatic contrasts she brings to the comparatively lengthy ballad Annie And Gregory - both are typical of the breathless enthusiasm with which Elle lives the songs and speaks directly to the listener. And her playing (while again not always absolutely technically perfect) is possessed with an assuredly robust, earthy quality that is attractive and addictive, bearing repeated listening in a way that rather more obviously accomplished playing often doesn't. So there you have it - an extraordinary album.
David Kidman