The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology & the English Folk Revival

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We continued regardless with the recording, revising and refining a body of over 20 potential songs. The rhythm section was ready to record in the Strong Room studios, London in October 2011 and January 2012 with our new engineer Paul Grady, from Doncaster, who completed the project as the mixing engineer. He became fascinated by druidry after “an epiphany” while working in Senegal, and after studying under the writer Philip Carr-Gomm was made an honorary bard. Tom Moore and Archie Moss, widely regarded as two of the best players and innovators in traditional folk, will be heading to Suffolk as well as Solana, a five-piece from Bristol, Whitby’s Richard Grainger and Bristol-based singer–songwriter Reema. The Imagined Village have become a lot better by becoming more ­conventional. When they started out, playing in a large tent in the mudbath that was ­Womad 2007, they were ­almost ­frantically ­experimental in their ­attempts to ­reinterpret ­traditional songs for a ­multicultural, 21st-­century Britain. ­Under the ­guidance of ­Simon ­Emmerson, of Afro Celt Sound ­System fame, they mixed music with ­multimedia effects, telling the story of ­traditional Sussex singers the ­Copper Family through clips on a screen ­behind the stage, and making use of ­programmed beats and electric bass.

One of the most unusual collaborations of the past decade, The Imagined Village made a significant impression with their critically acclaimed and commercially successful début album. They toured extensively, appeared on TV's Later…With Jools show and won out at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. If the band had initially developed as a loose collective of singers and musicians, they have subsequently consolidated into a working, growing, organic aggregation. This stability in personnel is shiningly reflected in the brand new, follow-up album, which is also their first on the new record label ECC. Titled “Empire and Love”, it is released on 11 January 2010, a few days prior to a major UK tour that will include prestigious gigs at Scotland’s Celtic Connections Festival and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. The Youth Moot, open to 11-17-year-olds, will include workshops and more in a new space at FolkEast. Emmerson began his career (under the pseudonym Simon Booth) as a guitarist in the now-forgotten post-punk group Methodishca Tune in the early 1980s before joining Cardiff-based Weekend, where his influence was more keenly felt in its eclectic world music borrowings. He then formed the jazz-dance-accented Working Week, and in 1984 he played on Everything but the Girl’s debut album, Eden. He went on to produce more than 80 albums, and contributed in various guises – writing and arranging, singing, playing, remixing – to more than 150 others. His range was esoteric, stretching from his Grammy-nominated production for Baaba Maal’s Firin’ in Fouta (1994) to working with Robert Plant on Life Begin Again in 2003, and co-producing Sinéad O’Connor’s Collaborations in 2005. Bending the Dark, as a title doesn’t refer to trendy new Physics, deviant sexual practices or even Lord of the Ring wizardry, it’s really very simple: It doesn’t matter how bad things are if you pull together you can turn the situation around and come out of the darkness stronger and more confident.”As a tribute to Simon, you can listen to those mixes below in which his passion for nature and music is clear, he was one of a kind.

The resurgence of folk in the new century, a hundred years after Cecil Sharp became riveted by the sight of Morris dancers, remains a work in progress. Already, though, new times are finding fresh resonance within folk’s age-old contours. The music’s darker strains, its murder ballads and pirate yarns, have been pulled to the fore – witness the recent Rogue’s Gallery project – while in an age of corporate governance, the fact that folk is not ‘owned’ by anybody is cheering.When I spoke to Simon, he explained how, as a keen birder, the Big Garden Birdwatch was like bringing it all home to your yard, and he wanted to celebrate that with this long-overdue mix. Home is always a great place to start, so why not get involved if you are new to watching wildlife and birds? You can learn more here: https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/ Saturday night will bring a headline set to savour from “one of the premier English folk groups of the 21 st century “– the Mercury Prize-nominated The Unthanks, as they return to touring after two years with their bumper eleven-piece band and music from their first new album in six years, Sorrows. Simon Emmerson, the founder of Afro Celt Sound System, core founder of The Imagined Village, record producer, guitarist, bird watcher and Honorary Bard, passed away on Monday, 13th March. Simon touched the hearts of millions of people through his music and infinite wisdom. His legacy remains with the amazing people he bought together and they will continue to create the magic of his music with his guidance from above.