The final instalment of Judy's entrancing trilogy of albums for Talking Elephant is a perfect continuation of the second (Spindle), notably in the consistency of both its poetic lyrical invention and its adopted sound-world. It brings eight more new songs to the table, resplendent in beautiful aural clothing that's smooth but edgy, refined but somehow quite primeval.

The dominant timbre is, as before, intelligent prog-ambient keyboard texturings, which are all down to the wizardry of Judy's chief collaborator Mark Swordfish (of Astralasia); however, such is the excellence of the recording that neither is Judy's vocal ever in danger of being drowned in a sea of synths nor are the key instrumental lines or "voices" held anywhere but in exemplary balance.

Although Judy's now some distance away from the milieu of folk-rock where she made her name with the original lineup of Fairport Convention, she still retains a connection with that world - not just through occasional appearances at Cropredy but here on record through the very sound of her voice (one which some feel defined the late-60s' initial love-affair with the experimental psych scene), that eternally unmistakable clear, pure tone and cut-glass enunciation which just couldn't be anyone else.

This quality enables the two genres to collide - or at least brush shoulders - just a little on The Whorl, notably on the mystical portrait of The Teller and the wistful romanticism of The Last Kiss. And, incidentally, that also occurs on the album's one non-original, a magisterial reworking of the landmark first-album King Crimson number I Talk To The Wind. Elsewhere, the frontiers of song as we normally understand it are breached by the whispered spoken lyric of Seventh Whorl (offset against a jittery, chattering, eastern-inflected, or should I say astral-Asian, backdrop) and the electronically treated (wilfully obscured) vocal cadences of Wazzle Wizzle; these tracks provide a startling contrast with the genial simplicity of the opening mantra Starlight, whose rippling hammered dulcimer counterpoint is hard to resist, and the heady but harmonious expression of sensory perception in Forever Shining.

In addition to the aforementioned Mark S, Judy's support crew includes a certain Mr Fripp (soundscape and lead guitar), as well as Simon House (violins, keyboards), Peter Pracownik (guitars) and Dave Russell (banjo, bouzouki) - all of whom have a clearly defined part to play, and acquit themselves very well.

And I'll admit that I've never been a great fan of synth textures and programming, which I've often found used as gimmicks to mask a paucity of musical invention, but I'll always happily make an exception when these resources are used creatively and selectively at the service of the music, as here they are throughout. All the elements come together most satisfyingly, and thus The Whorl now takes its place alongside Spindle as another triumphant addition to Judy's CV; I eagerly await her next project.

David Kidman - December 2007

Judy Dyble - Spindle
***

Judy Dyble - The Whorl
****

Although forever connected to folk-rock via her tenancy as the original vocalist of Fairport Convention, Judy Dyble was equally at home within the more spaced out environs of psych/acid rock and these two recent releases see her fully embracing the genre via a multitude of talented friends and acquaintances. With Marc Swordfish – of underground dance pioneers Astralasia – and acid rock veterans Magic Mushroom Band as co-writers, the two albums straddle folk, acid rock and dance particularly well.

Spindle (I think the reviewer really means ‘The Whorl’ JD.) is resplendent in wistful and blissful chilled out ambience, most notably on ‘The Teller’ and ‘The Last Kiss’ whilst she revisits folk-rock territory on the semi-autobiographical ‘Road To Somewhere’, encompasses eastern dance influences on ‘Seventh Whorl’ and adopts an ethereal mood for the dreamlike ‘Forever Shining’.

The Whorl (I think the reviewer really means Spindle. JD) is an altogether more upbeat affair, opening with a full-blown acid rock outing for Syd Barrett’s ‘See Emily Play’, while the banjo refrain of Dave Russell and violin of Simon House contribute effectively to the pastoral folk-rock of ‘Fingest’. Russell’s banjo makes a return alongside Stevie B’s sax, on the inventive psych-folk fusion of ‘Darkness To Light’ and it all ends on a high note with the closer ‘Thank You my Dear’, a hypnotic amalgam of acid, folk-rock and country influences.

With the supporting cast over the two releases including James Asher (dulcimer), Peter Pracownic (guitars), Robert Fripp (guitar, soundscapes), Paul Chousmer (organ), Phoebe Thomasson (flute) and Martin Walker (bells and chimes) plus the afore-mentioned Russell, House, B and Swordfish, Dyble has assembled a formidable cast who, with her at the helm, create an often entrancing and always engaging sound.

Steve Caseman
http://www.rock-n-reel.co.uk

(Italics are my comments - Judy)

JUDY DYBLE was originally the voice of Fairport Convention in the late-60’s, pre Sandy Denny, before going on to team up with Jackie McAuley in Trader Horne.
Enchanted Garden, originally released in 2004 sees her utilising acid-folk abd contemporary programmed beats (courtesy of Marc Swordfish of The Magic Mushroom Band, and dance act Astralasia, who shares co-writing credits throughout) to exceptional effect. Perhaps a description such as ‘space-folk’ might best sum it up, with Dyble’s hypnotic pastoral tones providing a mantra-like feel throughout, whilst occasionally the spiralling fiddle of Simon House and sax of Steve B. add much melodic colour to the sweeping waves of keyboard. Fresh and memorable.

ROCK’n’REEL magazine
Vol.2 No.3 MAY/JUNE 2007 (page 108)
http://www.rock-n-reel.co.uk

Judy Dyble - Spindle (Talking Elephant)

I absolutely loved Judy's “comeback” album Enchanted Garden which came out over two years ago, and when I heard she was to follow it up real fast with not one but two more albums (such was her prolific nature in terms of new songwriting!), well I was exceeding pleased. But then came a hiatus, as I waited what seemed like ages before either appeared. Spindle, though once again a collaboration with Astralasia's Mark Swordfish, is generally not so heavy on the synths as Enchanted Garden, and it moves more in the direction of Judy's wyrd-prog-folk vocal personality - in fact, the hybrid music they're creating together has taken a step further towards a more readily definable sound-world and overall sensibility. Here the distinctive timbres of banjo (Dave Russell) and hammered dulcimer (James Asher) figure quite prominently alongside Simon House's violin and amongst the other strands of instrumentation on occasion. Enchanted Garden tended sometimes to stretch ideas out beyond their immediate interest value, but the virtue of economy is a lesson that's clearly been learned now, and Spindle's nine tracks don't outstay their welcome at all. The instrumental blending is even more inventive, and really complements Judy's cool, knowingly pure voice while also reflecting the equally knowing nature of the lyrics. These manage to be poetic, sometimes redolent of traditional song modes and structures but with the twist of ageless (and contemporary) realism. Some (eg. Fingest) are like songs lost and then now found, rediscovered for our delight; the phrases of Misty Morning tumble on out like the stream of consciousness of fresh experience. Honeysweet lies thick with the almost sickly aroma of enchanted love lost. Shining, bolstered by Bob Fripp's atmospheric guitar lines, weaves and shimmers, lost for words. Darkness To Light is a brave statement that manages to say much in very few words without seeming unduly cryptic. The apparent come-on of Thank You My Dear is more of an admonitory come-off, still smarting from the pangs of bitter experience. And Final Hour is a perfect example of the cynical deflation of stock romantic poesy with timely extrapolation by means of down-to-earth advice or circumstances - it contains some priceless couplets! Finally, there's a double-quick-time cover of See Emily Play that conveys the excitement and mystery of the original in a fresh, racing gallop. Spindle is an adventurous next-step of an album, and I can't wait to hear the final instalment of Judy's trilogy (The Whorl), due out any time now.

David Kidman 2007

The Magnificent Countess returns – yes, our new found friend Judy Dyble has returned to recording after what seems like a hundred year respite, and a sleeping beauty nap in between.
The first lady of the famous Folk / Rock band called Fairport Convention has awoken from her dream induced 1960’s slumber. She’s not only a 1960’s survivor but also a talented artist as well, and the passage of time hasn’t diminished her creativity one iota, in fact, she’s just as fresh and vibrant as ever.

The men of Fairport still remain in contact with the Countess, as they always have a healthy friendship and a never-ending respect for their colleague.
Judy has children and dogs and a beautiful calming / charming voice – and between these three thing, she has passed the years in a self-imposed solitude. Occasionally, she has returned to the concert platform for the Fairport gigs and other special related events.
To know where she’s been and the rest of her personal travels you’ll have to ask her in person or by email – which by the way, she’s excellent at replying to her friends and fans email request.

Her first new solo effort (now a bit older) is entitled “The Enchanted Garden” of which I’ve heard bits and pieces of and a future review of it will follow this one – in 2007.

Here’s my approach to our friend Judy:
I had to go out and purchase Fairport Convention’s first album and the only one with Judy included. I gave it a good listen, picked out the tracks that I liked best and ran it through a few more times. That was my introduction to miss Dyble. I also found that she’s the queen of melody and harmony, and that’s exactly where she likes to reside.
As an offbeat example and using a trucker’s analogy I offer the following:
When a person in an auto wants to become inconspicuous from the prying eyes of the police and their radar gun, for example, they go into what’s called “The Rocking Chair” which means, the auto gets between two tractor trailers in the right lane, and then a third one comes in the left lane in order to protect the auto from view. This is how I see Judy’s approach in a band, to lay low, to do her contribution and to not attract any unwanted attention to herself. This in turn, makes her that much more powerful and you find yourself compelled to pay attention to her every phrase. Her style is introverted, retrospective meditative, intellectual and emotional. Poetry in lyric, emotional in vocal tone and delivery, and overall she’s a creator of vision and myth. Judy has created a place where she’s safe, comfortable and secure…. and she invites you in for tea and a visit between friends.
With dogs by the open hearth fireplace and with its warm glow as the setting sun is reflected in the glass of her antique windows. There’s deep wisdom in her words, within her eyes is a childlike innocence, and her endless smile is the proof of contentedness and peace.

To me, this cd is in the realm of new age music. Rhythm words and Imagines – Trance like and invoking scenes and visions in lost lands and continents of discovery. Enya comes to mind in this aspect with her Orinoco Blue. In Judy’s music I see Rain forest, Feathered Indians with their loving Squaws, in naked apparel, sitting by a lake watching the full moon for signs / directions. The tribe comes into view, drum beats of the heart, water way passages for canoe and secret meetings in caves of shelter. Misty morning azure, creation and spiritual leanings. Have you seen the “Dead Poets Society” I ask you? Breaking rules for discovery. Magellan, Cortez, Columbus and before them the painted sails of the Antediluvian culture heading for the arid sands of Egypt on fragile rafts – beating the odds of failure, with the promise of paradise. And going back even further we find a primal air of the serene, with the tranquil breath of the souls in unrecorded voyages of the faithful fanciers of fame and fortune.

From Fairport Convention to this second solo effort, Judy has created a soundtrack for the human spirit / soul. Birth starts the life process / death brings it full circle. Judy insists on the ancient echoes and progressive images that form the tapestry of reality through illusion.

Listen to the echoes and the whispers through the reeds – can you hear the Syd Barrett influence I ask you? Can you hear them building the Pyramids and Stonehenge? The work is singing, the rhythm is constant, the results immortal. It’s the music that reveals the links, within the passages of time. On The Road To Somewhere Judy sings, talking to the wind – alone. What does Stonehenge say to us when we stand on Salisbury Plain? The wind says it all – as Dylan’s answers are blowing in the wind. Somewhere most of us have been, the 1960’s are a lifetime away, and this cd rekindles those memories that have been misplaced or apparently escaped capture. New Age Music meets Flower Power – more succinctly The Power of Love Returns – and with the power of soul anything is possible – says Hendrix in his band of Gypsy’s. This is the fertile soil in which Judy derives her passion, vision, hope and subtle grace.

Temples are the links, love is the answer – spirit – discovery – learning – practicing – teaching by example / not by rote - meditation – dream sequence – sleep my darling and awake refreshed love. Pray and dream, to remember and forget and come full circle.
In the darkest night there is hope, in the cold dawn there is reward and redemption. Compassion, and Benevolence Rule the Hours for the believers.

Countess Judith is spinning webs of hope for humanity – and individual promise of peace within us all….not a bad way to spend an evening!

Review by:
Dave and Brigitte
www.ten-years-after.com (Now)
www.alvinlee.de (Tribute)

This morning's listening is to the recent Judy Dyble releases, Spindle and The Whorl. Judy sent the first some time ago and the second arrived yesterday. It seems fitting to write about Spindle as it includes a version of See Emily Play. The news of Syd Barratt's death filtered-through yesterday. This is very sad. Both the Dyble albums are mantra-based. Harmonically speaking all is rather static, and the albums are kept moving by rhythmic devices or by textures provided by Marc Swordfish. This isn't a criticism. It allows Dyble's solo voice to be heard clearly across the top of the textures. Spindle's finest moments are the re-making of See Emily Play and the final Shining, which includes guitar and Soundscape parts by Robert Fripp. Here the Soundscapes are similar to the ones found of Fripp and Eno's Equatorial Stars.

However, I actually prefer the second album, The Whorl, kicked-off by the memorable Starlight. Many will find the new version of the McDonald/Sinfield song I Talk to the Wind to be the high-point. Here it's been re-cast into something Dyble has made very much her own. She actually sung on an early version of the song found on The Young Person's Guide to King Crimson, before the band was officialy called King Crimson. I Talk to the Wind is quite simply a very good song. Road to Somewhere is memorable with its slightly more edgy vocal timbre, but it's the new version of Shining - here called Forever Shining - which captures the attention. The Soundscapes are placed at the back of the mix and the solo guitar has been reduced. It's all stillness in the aftermath of a storm.

Andrew Keeling

........Sandy Denny is remembered for her work with Fairport but she was not the original singer. That honour goes to Judy Dyble who lives near Bicester. She sang on the first album simply called Fairport Convention. They were not, she says. the British Jefferson Airplane as the media was keen to dub them. Judy later went on to sing with Robert Fripp before King Crimson, but, until recently , she has been out of the music scene. Well, she has a new album,Spindle (Talking Elephant). This is far removed from the folk world. In fact, from the very first track, a version of See Emily Play, you are swept along by a trance-like mix of fast beats overlayed with Judy's gentle voice. It is cleverly produced by Marc Swordfish, who co-wrote the material with Judy, and indeed features Mr Fripp on guitar, along with the superb banjo playing of Dave 'Doc Mahone' Russell. It has a New Age aura about it and before you know it you are caught in its spell.

Peter Cann

What Judy did in her holidays…….

The unlikely pairing of Ex-Fairporter Dyble and Marc Swordfish was always likely to produce some contrasting textures, and this second album of their collaboration does not disappoint.

Attention is grabbed dramatically with the opening cover of See Emily Play, where Judy is found amid an arresting attack of electronic rhythm that powers a track so different that it could get club and radio attention.

Thereafter things settle into a more relaxed Arcadian groove with the melodic Fingest immediately catching the ear. Judy’s old pal Robert Fripp contributes striking guitar lines and a soundscape to Shining, where everyone’s talents are equally spotlighted.

Judy’s lyrics include wistful reflection as on the well-shaped Misty Morning, the tender love of Fingest, and the heartfelt closing track Thank You My Dear.

Including wider instrumentation of banjo, dulcimer, flute and saxes than its preceding Enchanted Garden, this album will fascinate many long-standing fans and gather many new ones.

Kingsley Abbott
Record Collector : May 2006

Judy Dyble - Spindle
Talking Elephant TECD084

In 2004, Judy Dyble, the first female vocalist with Fairport Convention in its earliest days, brought out Enchanted Garden, her first album since Trader Horne’s Morning Way, released thirty-five years previously. Following the paths explored on Enchanted Garden, Judy has now recorded a large number of tracks which are being released on three albums, of which Spindle is the first. With the exception of the first track, all of the songs here were written to loops of music created by Marc Swordfish, the producer of this album and its predecessor. This second album is deeper and more mature than the first, and is a welcome addition to Judy’s catalogue of recordings.

Final Hour takes the folk tradition and gives it a humorous twist – wandering virgins learn that rolling in the dew can get you – pneumonia! Perhaps the only ‘folk song’ ever to mention ‘vest and wellies’. Listen carefully, as Jude sings this absolutely straight, and the joke is in the mis-match between words and musical treatment. A lesson to some of those blinkered folkies on BBC 4’s Folk Britannia who take their music genres more seriously than a religion!
Folk music is in part characterised by the poetry of lyrics – as opposed to the ‘lerv’ of the standard pop lyrics – and the poetry comes through loud and clear in Misty morning – with an added moral message about the value of life, as death comes calling. Some tasteful percussion is provided by the producer, a sometime drummer. Talking of Marc, his refusal to incorporate a middle eight into his melodies, on the grounds that they are clichés, does take a little getting used to, and he risks falling into his own cliché – the melody without a middle eight.

Fingest is the name of a village in Buckinghamshire and provides the title for a gentle reflection on a love affair and the memories that it leaves. It is in part the instrumentation on this album that connects it to the folk tradition. The inclusion of James Asher’s hammer dulcimer on Honeysweet lightens an otherwise dark number.

It is a mark of the respect in which Judy is held by other musicians that Robert Fripp provides the guitar soundscape against which Jude overlays a sad and gentle vocal on Shining. Despite the repeated line of ‘I am lost for words’, it is clear that on this number and the others on this album, the singer’s writing skills reveal a beauty of their own.

Electronic effects are a hallmark of Marc’s production and Darkness to Light sees the singer’s voice treated as an instrument that weaves in and out of the melody, whisperingly distorted to a subtle, almost subliminal message. Wiggle Waggle is a short and curious little number in which the vocalist’s voice echoes itself over and over again in a tale of come-uppance. Thank you, my dear has shades of the street musician about it, with alternating bass drum and tambourine and a twanging jew’s harp like sound. Here Judy politely declines the advances of a would-be lover, fearful of the heartache that follows ‘when love turns so cold.’

This is very much a folk-influenced album, but it is the first track on the album that is a revelation – a dance version of Pink Floyd’s See Emily Play. A quintessential song of the psychedelic 60s, this version has a sawing fiddle, thundering electric bass and 4-to-the-bar bass-drum. Jude’s light and airy voice maintains a link with the feeling of Sixties while the instrumental retains a psychedelic floating sensation against the insistent dance rhythm. Believe me, this could be a hit in the clubs! Yes, this is rock music, but what is ‘rock’, if not the greatest folk music movement ever?

Ian Maun

**** (4 stars!!!!)

Talking Elephant TECD 068 (66:51)

After a career break of 34 years, save for the occasional Fairport/Cropredy reunion gig, Judy Dyble has combined with producer/writer Marc Swordfish of Astralasia to complete an album of depth and variety. Judy’s pastoral imagery evokes a romantic world of mists, fruitfulness and fairies that is kept from the dangers of twee by Swordfish’s sometimes dramatic soundscapes.

Judy’s voice has matured but retains the refined Englishness that has kept her a favoured treasure for many decades. The opener, Summer Gathers subtly reminds of late-60s psych-tinged pop and Enchanted Garden is a reworking of a Brian Patten poem that he gave to Judy.

The instrumental tracks weave in and out of the undergrowth, using guitars, sax, and extensive electronic programming to maintain an ethereal feel, broken only by the easy jog-along rhythm of Rivers Flow.

A fascinating album that will delight old fans and attract new ones.

Kingsley Abbott
Record Collector : November 2004

Former Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble and record-producer Marc Swordfish have teamed up. The results are quite surprising!

If you remember the Sixties, then you weren’t there, or so they say. For those who do remember that decade, it was an unsurpassed musical extravaganza, an era during which imagination and invention were given free rein, a time when the rules were not so much broken as shattered, an alchemical period when new and old fused into new and untried musical forms. Some of those forms still resonate down the years, giving inspiration and impetus to today’s new generation of musicians for whom genres are mere labels to be cast into the dustbin of musicological history.

Among those bands for whom music was an unmapped territory with no known borders was Fairport Convention. The band in their early days drew widely from folk, blues, rock and country and numbered among their sources American singer-songwriters such Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Richard Fariña. An example of the Fairport treatment of the latter’s ‘Reno, Nevada’ is to be seen the recent video-biography of Richard Thompson by Paul Bernays in which Thompson’s astonishing guitar solo crosses the border between rock and jazz. But then Fairport didn’t need any musical passports. They were busy discovering new lands.

In those early days, this eclectic group of pioneers was fronted by a slight and slender lady by the name of Judy Dyble. Judy (or Jude, as she prefers to be known) was born in North London and grew up among the lads and lasses of the Muswell Hill musical intelligentsia who might one night be seen nodding their long-haired heads at a John Cage concert and the next be singing traditional songs in a smoky folk club in the upstairs room of a pub. The folk revival was in full swing and Jude’s first major public appearance was in 1964 with a Seekers look-a-like band - Judy and The Folkmen - at a candlelight soirée in the august premises of the Hornsey Conservative Association. In the heady summer of 1967, Jude, her brother Stephen and Richard Thompson, all heavily under the influence of John Cage, recorded a weird session in the Dybles’ front room, using open piano strings, recorders and a copper watering-can. Their backing musician was Jude’s mum - on sewing machine. The results were…strange.

Jude recorded one single with Fairport (‘If I Had A Ribbon Bow’) and the band’s eponymously titled first album, released in June 1968, on which Jude played piano, recorder and autoharp, a then somewhat uncommon instrument in the world of rock music. Before the LP was in the shops, Jude had left the band and was soon to join Giles, Giles and Fripp. The offspring of that happy union long remained hidden from the eyes and ears of the world, until Pete Giles gathered together the surviving tapes and issued them as “The Brondesbury Tapes” in 2001, an album which goes to show that if a thing’s worth waiting for, it’s worth waiting a long time for. Jude features on a number of tracks, including the folky ‘Under The Sky’, the jazzy ‘Make It Today’ and a classic track, ‘I Talk to the Wind’, that later appeared as a King Crimson number on “AYoung Person’s Guide To King Crimson”.

After the near-launch of a band with her friend Roberta, married for a while to Simon Nicol, Jude started a new venture in the form of Trader Horne, a band which she formed with Irish musician Jackie McAuley, a sometime member of Van Morrison’s band, Them. A few gigs, a few TV appearances, and Trader Horne then vanished into the history books, leaving one excellent if under-rated album, “Morning Way”, twice re-released on CD in a more appreciative era. Like Fairport Convention, Trader Horne drew on many sources and influences, took them, re-moulded them and stamped them with their own distinctive character. On the album you will find folk, blues, Elizabethan harpsichord music, baroque and much, much more, each track weaving around some well-known genre and then giving it a cheeky if respectful twist to make it something quite new and quite different. Jude is not a lady to be confined, contained or catalogued.

In the period between the 70s and the early 80s, Jude worked with her husband, Simon Stable, on their tape-duplication business in Oxfordshire, producing everything from cassettes for examination boards to radio commercials. One of these was a remarkable advertisement for Mirror Master chrome cassettes, on which Jude sang a version of ‘Amazing Grace’ in which she extolled the virtues of the said tapes in a voice which made one wish to hear her singing the original song. Occasionally she would venture into the studio and lay down a track or two or sing backing vocals for other singers. One of her tracks was the country song ‘Satisfied Mind’, a number recorded by the Byrds on their second album, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, and covered by Fairport as a stage number. Another was a funky, punky version of Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’, recorded in 1982 and produced by Adrian Wagner, inventor of the Wasp synthesiser. Yet again crossing borders, Jude pre-dated much of the synthesiser-based music that was to dominate the Eighties. Sadly, these tracks never found a commercial outlet and Jude’s only musical output was the occasional appearance at Cropredy, guesting with her old friends from Muswell Hill.

Back in the Sixties, while Jude was busy singing through the purple haze of the Underground clubs of Old London Town, one Marc Swordfish was busy growing up in Southall in Middlesex and absorbing the sounds around. Unlike Jude, his roots weren’t in folk, but in The Who, Pink Floyd, Bolan, Bowie and Slade. A drummer by musical inclination, he was into Keith Moon and Ginger Baker, until he met the latter and decided that the man was something unprintable. His music ultimately took him into the production side of things, and it was at Pete Townshend’s Meher Babar Oceanic Studio that he first saw the possibilities of sampling, mixing and synthesising sounds using tape and other wonders of the electronic kind. For ten years he worked in an Arts Centre, producing and engineering for others. Never a one for genres, labels or any other kind of pigeon-holing of music, Marc began to work for himself on sampling and producing sounds with synthesisers, creating work that referred to the old, yet was perfectly new in its conception. If any walls, fences or barriers remained in the musical world, they were there to be torn down.

Marc’s professional work led him into re-mastering tapes for record companies. Among the artists who came under his hand were Berlin, Todd Rundgren, Bob Marley, Guns and Roses and Flock of Seagulls. In all of these, he breathed new life into old products. But this was not quite good enough. It was all once-removed, all second-hand. Marc at this time was playing with his ground-breaking band, Astralasia, who created half a dozen albums of their own. Marc’s own favourite among these is “Whatever Happened to Utopia?”. He now nurtured a musical dream in his heart, a creative dream involving Astralasia - and someone else. He had played at the Marquee, had seen the first gigs of bands with inspiration, including U2 and Simple Minds, and it was that element of genius, that ability to synthesise that attracted him. At home, too, he had inspirational albums in his collection, those that showed the ability to progress, those that boldly went where no musician had gone before. These included Love’s “Forever Changes”- and “Fairport Convention”, that first diverse, different and durable album that is still highly listenable. It had become Marc’s dream to make an album with Judy Dyble.

Happily, dreams do come true. Acting as intermediary, Barry Riddington of Talking Elephant brought the singer and the producer together and the result is something that is new, vibrant and exciting. Marc laid down outline backing tracks in his studio in Cornwall, using other musicians such as Simon House on violin and Stevie B. on saxophone, as well as his own talent on guitar and synthesiser. He sent the rough products up to Oxfordshire. Jude received them with some surprise. ‘I thought, “Lumme! I don’t understand this music, I don’t know how to deal with it.” ’ So she listened, chose pieces that she liked, reflected, walked round the fields and came up with lyrics inspired by the mood and structure of the music. She dug out, too, her thirty year-old song book with songs from the Fairport and Trader Horne era and selected three songs to marry to the contemporary sounds of Marc’s production. Among Jude’s archives, there was, too, a poem written for her by Brian Patten. In distant bed-sit days in Notting Hill, she used to baby-sit his typewriter when he went away, and the poem was a ‘thank you’ written once on his return. This, too went into the melting pot.

Over a period of two years the creative process continued, with Marc travelling from Cornwall to Oxfordshire, where he recorded Jude at home in the peace and comfort of her own music room. It is perhaps for this reason that she sounds so at ease and relaxed on the album, away from the stress of the live performance or the pressure of the studio. The songs went through various mixes and refinements, as layers of music were added and developed, until the final product appeared in the summer of 2004. It remained to find an outlet for the album. Happily, it came in the form of Talking Elephant, a company that is never afraid to let musicians do their own thing and be creative. Just like the Sixties, really.

And so to the album itself. Where live input ends and the sampling and synthesising begin is impossible to say. The whole is an exciting symbiotic relationship between live instruments, live vocals and sounds conjured from the magic cauldron of the computer.

The cover sets the mood. A blue fairy sits with her head on her knees. In contemplation or despair? Who knows? Designed by Peter Pracownik, it harks back to Roger Dean, but with elements of legend, paganism and the New Age.

‘Summer Gather’s opens the album. This is a song about summer music festivals and about Cropredy in particular. Driven by guitar and tom-toms with a sax solo that echoes ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’, it moves at a head-rocking pace that will suit those festival-goers who like to stand in the middle of a seated festival crowd and dance half-naked and sinuously in time to a tune that is often as much in their heads as coming from the stage. The title track, ‘Enchanted Garden’ is Brian Patten’s poem written for Jude and is a whirling, weaving Indian-influenced number, with sitar and tabla counterpointed by spacey, computer effcts. The vocal is a gentle, echoing thread that runs through the tapestry of sound behind it. Tasteful guitar comes occasionally to the fore. This is music to listen to in a darkened room with joss-sticks scenting the air. This is the Sixties teleported into the New Millennium!

‘Rivers Flow’ is drawn from Jude’s archive and is a country-influenced song that bounces along on a dotted rhythm in a light and funky fashion, driven by some nice Ry Cooder-like slide guitar. Jude’s enunciation takes this song far away from any American swamp-lands and places it firmly in England, where the right romance has arrived at just the wrong moment. In ‘New World’ a jangling, almost atonal sound opens the introduction against an off-beat tambourine. The mood here is almost eastern, echoing Ketèlby’s ‘In A Persian Market’. A wild violin with synthesised effect plays an elongated solo, before Jude’s clear, precise vocal sums up the peace of a new and private world of sanctuary. The working title for the number was, in fact, ‘Sanctuary’.

The strangely titled ‘Nimbus/Thither Wood ’ is a solemn, dark regret for a lost love with a rhythmic, almost military insistence to its backing. A sampled hammer-dulcimer plays a rippling solo that transports the mood to the Balkans. Jude pleads for forgiveness to the offended lover while a great diapaison of “Phantom”-like organ-music swells behind the vocal. The song ends on a note of desperation as the vocal distorts and bleak synthesiser sounds fade into a hopeless distance. ‘Long Way Home’ is a slow nostalgic number with a heart-like pulse underlying Jude’s ethereal vocals. A Moog-like synthesiser gives way to soaring guitar and then to an edgy sax that lends a touch of Hawkwind. Little wonder, since the sax-player is Stevie B., sometime musician with that jazz-rock freaky fusion band. It has delightful harmony vocals, but surprises by lacking a vocal middle eight.

‘For You’ is the first track that Jude recorded in this partnership with Marc Swordfish. Dedicated to her late husband Simon, it is an address to the departed about musical days long gone and the continuing present, in which music, like life, goes on. Jude’s rippling vocal weaves slowly over an underlying current of rhythm and syncopation. The lonely and repeated ‘Where are you? Where did you go?’, which ends the song, strikes a touching note of longing. ‘Star Crazy’ is the second song whose words Jude wrote in 1969 or 1970 during the Trader Horne period. Love here is set in a cosmic background of stars and nature. Cymbals ripple and a bass drum pulses throughout, insistent and ever-present like the love-madness of which Jude sings. An echoing sax sets an atmosphere of disembodiment.

Neu Blue was written by Jude and her daughter Stephanie. Although you couldn’t tell unless you knew, the song is about Jude’s grey-blue greyhound Kymo, who featured once with Jude on ITV’s “Pet Rescue” as a ‘pat dog’. Kymo died a couple of years ago, and this is a mother and daughter tribute to a gentle and very lovely dog. The mood is soft as befits such a tribute. The final track, ‘Going Home’, is the third of Jude’s archive numbers and rocks along to a gentle Latin beat and a backing that approaches the sound of a string orchestra. Here endeth the album.

There’s only one thing to do when you’ve listened to this CD. Press ‘Play’ again. And again.

How does this album link with Jude’s previous productions? ‘It doesn’t really,’ she says. ‘The only relationship it bears to any of the previous stuff I’ve done is that none of the previous stuff was anything like the stuff I’d done before. It’s always been different. So it’s following a pattern of difference. There’s been no perceived journey, no intentional progression. The only thing in common is me. The only similarities are the differences.’

Jude’s name is associated with a sort of folky rock music. But is the music on this new album ‘folk music’? Producer Marc Swordfish is adamant on this point. ‘I don’t like labels and genres. Only Luddites apply those sorts of things. Punk was a folk music. Folk music is people playing from the heart. It’s music played in an organic way with organic feeling. This album has been a labour of love. I don’t want people to pre-conceive what sort of music it is. I want the album to be respected for itself.’ Certainly some of these tracks seem close to the genres labelled ‘techno-trance’, ‘ambient’ or ‘psychedelic’, but music, like many other things, doesn’t fall into categories. Rather, there are family resemblances between some musical productions and others. There are such resemblances here. Some tracks are like one type of music, others like another. But like individual people in a family, each is unique, each valuable for being itself and each the stronger for having the characteristics of two or more other family members.

So should we be reviewing this album in a ‘folk music’ magazine? Oh, yes. Folk music, like any other organic entity, grows and changes, sometimes predictably, sometimes in strange and surprising ways. Those of us who went through the Sixties witnessed the Electric Revolution. Nobody would have predicted that acoustic guitar-strumming, sharp-suited bands such as Peter, Paul and Mary would be replaced by the electric acid-folk music of the Byrds or the country-rooted rock of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Nobody would have thought that the finger-in-the-ear folk music or the skiffle and jug-band music that emanated from many a British pub would receive an electric jolt from a bunch of scruffy youngsters from Muswell Hill. At the time, purists screamed loudly from the tops of their isolated pillars, but they were lone voices in the wilderness. Now, too, some of the groovy geezers from the Sixties have become the grumpy old men of today, railing against anything that is new and different. But in all things, we must live and let live. Today’s ‘folk music’ is different from yesterday’s. Perhaps tomorrow’s will be too. Let’s hope so.

Ian Maun
Interview and review published in Folk on Tap Oct-Dec 2004

Here's a name from the dim and distant past! Judy started off in the first-ever incarnation of Fairport Convention, in the pre-Sandy Denny lead vocalist role, then left after recording just one album and single, subsequently teaming up with ex-Them man Jackie McAuley in Trader Horne and recording the beauteous, classic Morning Way album. And that was pretty much that, for Judy then retired from music as far as we can make out. But now she's back, revitalised - and sounding every bit as coolly captivating in the vocal department (the years have been very kind to her voice) on Enchanted Garden (do we call it her comeback?). In many ways, Enchanted Garden is a "pick things up where they left off" creation, for both its lyrics and sound-world take the folky-prog ambit on through to fully-fledged prog-rock-with-folky-touches. Synths and keyboard programming here largely take the place of acoustic percussion instruments and tinkling guitars, pianos and harpsichords - just as you'd expect of a contemporary equivalent or update. And the lyrics (mainly Judy's own) are very much in the time-honoured prog-romantic mould, if at times a tad vague or even over-simplistic. But what's different is that on the purely musical front, economy of expression has been jettisoned in favour of more sprawling and (sadly) rather repetitive devices, and this means that most tracks tend to outstay their welcome - having made their point well, and often with some really enticing and imaginative ideas and sounds, in say four minutes, the riffs and chord sequences are prolonged for longer than their musical interest can ideally stand credibility and the final lines of text just repeated "to fade" and sometimes well beyond. Which is a shame, for the album has plenty of genuinely charming and attractive passages, whether luxuriating in eastern-tinged exotics (the title track) or delta-funk (Rivers Now) or Afro-patterned rhythms (Summer Gathers), or prog pomp in the true King Crimson fashion, or else swaying to a pulsing lifebeat (Long Way Home, Neu! Blue) or swathed in Hawkwind-type washes of electronics (For You); and as I've said, Judy herself is sounding just fine. The ten tracks on Enchanted Garden are all joint compositions between Judy and percussionist/keyboardist Marc Swordfish, some with additional words or ideas by others involved in the production and one with words by poet Brian Patten. Ancillary but certainly vital elements in the musical tapestry are provided by violinist Simon House (remember him from 70s proggers High Tide?), who with Stevie B (saxes) and Peter Pracownik (guitars) is responsible for the majority of the backing that doesn't involve hands on keyboard; guest musicians for isolated contributions to four of the tracks include David Gates. In spite of its occasional longueurs, then (hey, what would prog be without them?), this captivating release is still worth your investigation.

www.talkingelephant.com
David Kidman

After an absence of about three decades from the recording scene, Judy Dyble -- who sang folk-rock with the original Fairport Convention, the embryonic King Crimson, and Trader Horne in the late 1960s and early 1970s -- resurfaced with the 2004 solo album Enchanted Garden. It's not quite what those who know her name would expect, even though in some respects it's very consistent with the gentle British folk-rock with which she made her name. Her stately vocals remain intact, and the material -- which she co-wrote with several of the musicians who accompany her on the album -- is melodically haunting, folky, and lyrically colored by images of dignified nostalgia and contemplation of nature.

It's the production that will take some folk-rock fans by surprise, as it's quite immersed in electronic effects and programming, adding synthetic echoes to her vocals and phasing swirls, throbbing beats, and various cascading blipping into the arrangements. Actually most of the accompaniment is played on conventional electric and acoustic instruments, with another figure who first emerged in the late-'60s British rock scene, Simon House (once of High Tide, Hawkwind, and Third Ear Band), contributing violin and some songwriting assistance. But Marc Swordfish's percussion, keyboards, and programming are the most prominent features other than Dyble's singing. It results in something like a hybrid of British folk and new age-tinged trance music, and while that's guaranteed not to please some folk-rock fans, it actually comes off fairly well. Unlike many such efforts by veterans to get in tune with contemporary trends, Dyble and her associates sound at ease with the territory, making it more interesting than many such projects.

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide - http://richieunterberger.com

Judy Dyble - Enchanted Garden

**** (4 stars!!!!)