Various Artists – The Inner Octave – Rif Mountain – RMCOMP-001 - ***

Mumford and Sons, and their singer-songwriter followers, aren't really folk musicians.
Folk fans, still looking to the likes of Topic records and the Waterson-Carthy dynasty for an uncut fix might wonder, wither the next generation?
But the Rif Mountain label, comprehensively showcased here, offers a cross-fertilised family of younger artists, quietly future-proofing the form.
The Owl Service grapple with Lal Waterson's ghostly lament Fine Horseman, and electrify the standard Katie Cruel in an early Seventies acid-folk style; The Straw Bear Band anglicise Creedence's Bad Moon Rising convincingly; and the Caledonian mediaevalist Alasdair Roberts' own False Astronomy is a spritely highland gavotte.

(14/8/11)