The album features five folk songs, including Sketch’s arrangement of John Renbourn’s version of Death and The Lady, a set of reels that take Gary’s playing into very unfamiliar territory, and three non-traditional numbers. Almost inevitably, for any project involving Maggie, one of these is a Steve Tilston song, a very sympathetic reading of Anthony Believes. Like that song, the version of Bert Jansch’s Bird Song recalls an earlier musical collaborations. Perhaps most surprisingly, Billie Holiday’s God Bless The Child is evidence of the new directions in which working with Gary have taken her.

If the previous paragraph make the album sound like a Maggie Boyle record then it belies the delicately balanced contribution of all three members. Take away any part of that and the whole would diminish; to add more would be redundant.

The whole album is the epitome of good taste. Musically, it is both unexpected and totally right, the epitome of understatement. The recording is produced with economy and crystalline clarity. Even the packaging – beauteous in its simplicity – is delightful. It is, in short, a faultless achievement.

Much more than a sketch, this is a masterpiece in miniature.

Tykes News ~ Nigel Schofield

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Review of Sketch CD

Dagama CD123

 The term may be a cliché, but this is a supergroup. Here we have the combined talents of Maggie Boyle (yes, that Maggie Boyle!), Gary Boyle (yes, thatGary Boyle!) and Dave Bowie (actually, no, not that David Bowie). In other words, one of Britain’s finest traditional singers, one of its most respected jazz guitarists and a bass player of impeccable subtlety.

One is tempted to use that convenient catch-all, ‘fusion’, but the term does a disservice to what happens on these nine tracks. There is no sense of disparate elements being merged together, but rather one feels that this is a natural confluence. The arrangement of each track is utterly valid, in every case adding new dimensions to the song. Take, for example, the second track, Searching For Lambs: Gary evokes the scene with an understated pastoral guitar, before Maggie joins with a pacey take on the well-known narrative, allowing space for looping inventive solos, while all the while Dave’s bass creates highlights like shafts of sunbeams breaking through on the rustic romantic encounter.