Betwixt and Between Tape Launch

​"On Betwixt & Between 4 we welcome Glasgow-based Scots folk-singer Quinie, with a clutch of songs hot on the heels of last year's album Buckie Prins (on the always-excellent GLARC label). 

Jacken Elswyth's side consists of four banjo pieces plus a venture into English folk-song, with a recording of 'The Banks of Green Willow' made in a field in Herefordshire. Among the banjo pieces are three improvisations, plus an arrangement of the hymn tune (and John Fahey standard) 'In Christ there is no East or West'. Each of the improvisations stretches the banjo in a different direction – the first by bowing, the second by adding delay, and the third by looping the sound of brushes across its skin as a soundscape for improvising across. 

On the other side Quinie sings a set of songs playfully embellished with occasional bells, whistles, and percussion, and interspersed with odd interludes of reedy drone. The songs themselves draw on some gently comedic sources – as on Matt McGuinn's 'Red Yoyo' or Duncan MacRae's 'Wee Cock Sparra' – alongside Quinie's continued exploration of the repertoire of Lizzie Higgins on 'Wha's at the windy'. The songs are presented largely unaccompanied, with instrumentation lending carefully placed emphasis around her wonderfully trad Scots singing style. 

The Betwixt & Between 4 mascot is the harpy: a beautiful human vulture, and a vicious thief. The cover image is adapted from marginalia in the Rutland Psalter.  "

On Jacken's side: 
All tracks arranged, performed, recorded and mixed by Jacken Elswyth. 

On Quinie's side: 
Tracks performed and recorded by Josie Vallely, Gordon Bruce, and Tom Merewether 

​released May 1, 2019