At the 2011 Green Man Festival, North Sea Radio Orchestra (NSRO) performed a tribute to the music of Vernon Elliot , the composer of music for much-loved children's TV programmes such as The Clangers, Bagpuss and Noggin The Nog.
Born in 1967, NSRO band leader and acoustic guitarist Craig Fortnum would have grown up watching these shows, although he says that it was only recently that he became aware of the similarities between his modern chamber ensemble and the jaunty naivety of Elliot's music.
Other comparisons to NSRO tend to span a broad gamut of better known English classical and folk music, ranging from Benjamin Britten and Vaughan Williams to Fairport Convention and Kate Bush. The connecting factor is that all are quintessentially English artists.
England's green and pleasant land is lovingly evoked in the flowing melodies and elegant textures of their third album, I, A Moon. Their first two albums featured lyrical chamber pieces as well as settings for poems of Blake, Hardy, Tennyson and Chaucer but I, A Moon is the first release on their own label and differs slightly from its predecessors. Most noticeably, it features self-penned lyrics and gives a more prominent role to synthesizer and percussion although the underlying pastoral mood of the music remains unchanged.
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With its heightened purity and attention to detail it is at times a little overwrought and its whimsical elements are by turns charming and irritating. But there's no denying the richness and delicacy of the ensemble's playing on the opening track, Morpheus Miracle Maker or the soft, fluffiness of the title track. Both these songs are grounded by the natural, untrained voice of Craig Fortnum's wife Sharron.
The combination of ornate orchestration and gentle folkiness is also evident in other fine tunes like Heavy Weather and The Earth Beneath Our Feet. On the former the husband and wife share the vocals to fine effect.
The closing instrumental Mitte Der Welt and the Krautrock influenced Berliner Luft provide some variation but the celebration of Englishness is the overriding theme of this unusual but beautifully crafted album.
North Sea Radio Orchestra's Website
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