Sometimes, music does this funny thing to me where it makes me feel suspended - out of time, outside my own head, halfway between laughter and tears. I suppose you'd call it being moved, but I don't think it's as simple as that. It especially seems to happen with music with a real sense of past and place. If that sounds like nonsense, allow me to introduce Billy Bennington...There he is, The Barford Angel. He explains his nickname half-coherently in the first track of his only album, rumbling in his Norfolk burr about his younger days cycling around with his dulcimer strapped to his back in a green case "like a pair o' wings". This little introduction is the first of many wonderful clips of Billy speaking, earning his dialect a billing on the album cover. Like good music, his voice makes more sense on each listen, and you feel like you're tuning into the stories of a gurning old man in the pub who's lived through a forgotten corner of English history. His obvious mirth at relating pub snacks (big jar of pickled onions, red herrings you have to pull the head off) is funny, but you don't feel like you're laughing at him because his hearty character wins your affection. The stories conjure up a roaming life, full of music and hardship. One of the best, before 'Slow Stepdance', has a perfect combination of this sadness and humour, beginning with "had rough times, good times, hard times, cold times...slept in a pigsty."
Of course none of this would be so magical and engaging if it weren't for the music. The hammered dulcimer works on the same principle as a piano, but rather than pressing keys to make the hammers hit the strings, the player uses small mallets to strike the strings directly, as well as plucking them with their fingers. It's an instrument with many variations, and features heavily in folk music from all around the world. You might be more familiar with it as the Indian santoor.However, where Indian classical music tends to use it delicately in its winding improvisational ragas, Billy Bennington plays jigs, marches, and traditional folk tunes with a joyous energy, plucking and hammering across the strings to get a reverberating, and slightly off-kilter sound. Which is not to say that he cannot be poignant: tunes like the cascading 'Redwing', and the swooning waltz of 'Dulcie Bell 2' feature a slower, considered style which feels like when you're drunk and you have to stop still because you're unexpectedly struck by the beauty of something.
The faster, giddier tunes also sound odd because it's just unaccompanied dulcimer, like this one man is playing the soundtrack to a dance which is over - as you might say Billy was. There's something about the sound the dulcimer makes which adds to this, I may be wrong but it seems though there's some kind of microtonal resonance to each note, which makes it all seem a bit otherworldly and dreamlike. It has a hint of the fairground organ to it, but not the clichés that go with that instrument. Anyway, the playing is masterful, intricate and subtle even in the faster numbers, like 'The Chicken Reel' and 'The Pony Trot Polka'. Between the fast and slow pieces there are many other brilliant melodies, which to me seem inventive and unusual - goes to show how much is lost in ignoring those old songs. It seems strange that such mysterious sounds come from such a merry old man, but that only adds to the greatness of their combination. Maybe it even justifies him his nickname.
Nothing on Youtube I'm afraid folks, but it can be heard on Spotify or bought from Amazon for around 10 quid.
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