Mat Green & Andy Turner - Time for a Stottycake

After many years of collaboration, fiddler Mat Green and singer, Anglo-concertina and melodeon player Andy Turner, two very well-known names on the trad and Morris dancing scenes, teamed up to record Time for a Stottycake, their first album together. It offers a large selection of traditional tunes, both some centuries old and modern classics, with some famous titles alongside lesser-known ones.

Tunes and songs, mainly from 18th and early 19th century collections, wisely alternate and combine, providing a good variety of styles and rhythms. The vast majority of them come from England, but the occasional Irish, Scottish or American piece helps to make the overall result more diverse and fascinating.

The most remarkable instrumental medleys include evergreen tunes such as Flowers of Edinburgh, Princess Royal, Bobbing Joe and Kempshot Hunt, a direct reference to the county of Hampshire, where the album was recorded and produced, and a faster rendition of 9/8 march The Battle of the Somme, composed by Pipe Major William Laurie, ironically killed during that tragic event.

The songs, delivered with evident passion, include some lyrics related to the sea, like the evocative On Board a 98, first recorded by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1905 during his trip to King’s Lynn, and the slightly enigmatic Saucy Sailor; but also jolly old pieces like the funny Nottingham Goose Fair and the lively The Barley Raking.

The title of the album comes from the only self-penned tune in this collection, that is the polka that opens the final medley, named after the popular form of bread from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the city where Turner spent a long period of study.

Time for a Stottycake is an album for true lovers of traditional music, but it can also appeal to neophytes of the genre thanks to the genuine love for music that oozes from every track.