A few kind reviews

Secret Eye is a label you can trust to release excellent albums and when they released the first album by ‘The Big Huge’in 2004, I bought it without hesitation. The band's name taken from the album by Incredible String Band implied a connection to folk deeperthan some new artists. Whereas many new artists are following an experimental route, The Big Huge make excellent traditional sounding folk with very slight psychedelic touches. They are a band who deserve far more attention and will endure when fashions move on from the ‘new folk’ phase we have now. Their first album was reviewed here and found to be a fantastic example of how to make a traditional folk sound in a contemporary way.

Hearing the first song, ‘Will I Follow You To The Sea,’the listener is charmed immediately with an Irish sounding vocal over soft chiming guitar and dulcimer and accordion. It is beautiful, simple acoustic music with an air of wonderment and joy. There is a quiet generation of similar artists not worried about fashions making music with similar love of simple folk be it The Kitchen Cynics, The Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree, Daniel Patrick Quinn , Josephine Foster  and many others.

In particular fans of the Deserted Village Collective would find a huge amount to enjoy here and it should surely be an essential purchase, one you'll return to more than some formless experimental noodling. It is a short release of about twenty minutes, it flashes by and is gone far too quickly. It would be wonderful to hear a full-extended set from them. But there is more passion and talent here than on many a seventy-minute release.

Many people connected to the delirious acoustic folk in The Wicker Man because it seemed so ancient and stark, connecting to a way of living that was lost. That same feeling is evoked here, that intuitive understanding of nature and our connection to it infuses the songs. ‘Wrapped In The Cloth Of Heaven’ is a simple and refeshing direct acoustic folk song whilst ‘A Crickets Call Came One and All’ is a stepping mountain tune. ‘The Ballad of North Haywood’ for example brings together a lullaby melody with a fantastic performance and provides an example of the band's quality. It is music such as this which drew me to folk music and keeps my faith in it as strong as always.

Afterwards we come to ‘A Subtle Tune’ with its toy glockenspiel melody, then ever closer to traditional folk in a vibrant form on ‘Weep Not Wandering Willow’and the final James Yorkston-like accordion folk of ‘North Country. This is music that manages the alchemy of being more than the sum of its parts, from only a few instruments on a few short songs, a joyous magic is communicated.

-The Unbroken Circle

The low-key duo that makes up the Big Huge -- its name a reference to obvious partial forebears the Incredible String Band -- lets the music speak for itself on A Woven Page of Silver Light, and does so with gentle panache. Recorded by kindred soul Micah Blue Smaldone of Cerberus Shoal, vocalist/guitarist Drew Nelson and Michael Lambright (nearly everything else, including glockenspiel) aim for a feeling of reflective rural calm, helped by such song titles as "Weep Not Wandering Willow" and "A Crickets Call Come One and All." (The best title, though, would have to be "A Subtle Tune," which definitely has the quietest performance, right down to a midsong pause.)

Right from the ambling start of "Will I Follow You to the Sea," played on dulcimer by Nelson, the feeling is of where it was literally recorded at -- a house, with Nelson's voice caught in that specific ambience so perfectly it's like he wasn't so much in a speaker system as standing next to it, something maintained throughout the disc.

Lambright's various contributions are often perfect small touches to the overall performances, filling out the arrangements with a touch of depth rather than swamping anything (his accordion performances are especially delightful, and on "The Ballad of North Haywood" they add a feeling at once celebratory and sad). Some songs are at almost Wire-length, barely a minute and a half long, but instead of feeling fragmentary they seem to be exactly right: quick, delicate performances that suit the often lovely titles (consider the guitar/ukulele/vocal combination of "Wrapped in the Cloths of Heaven" as one example). Short at just under 20 minutes, A Woven Page of Silver Light is a striking miniature that deserves wider attention.

All Music Guide

Micah Blue Smaldone has recorded at the Cerberus Shoal house a wonderful moody recording of this duo. This sound is a perfect and suitable ballad like music, for a kind of unique warm sphere during an evening in a nice folk bar. Drew Nelson plays guitar, dulcimer and sings and is accompanied by Michael Lambright, accordion, ukulele and glockenspiel. The label describes this as the American answer to Alasdair Roberts which gives indeed some clue of what I mean. An improvement since the debut, and a perfect listen.

-Psychedelicfolk.com

Artists such as Devendra Banhart and Josephine Foster are very busy with the rediscovery of British folk from the sixties. In that period for example Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins’ beautiful work  has been brought out and until recently it  seemed as if this period of music history was almost forgotten. The Big Huge has been clearly influenced by the music from this period and especially by the Incredible String Band. On a Woven Page of Silver Light you will hear substantial effects of these links. The name The Big Huge has been even borrowed from one of their albums.

The voice of Drew Nelson proves to be very well arranged for this music. Dulcimer, banjo, accordion and ukelele make the sound complete. ` A Crickets Call Come One and All ' and ` a Subtle Tune ' especially makes the link of all those influences really its own sound. The Big Huge takes you along the path to times in which living was simple. After seven numbers it has however unfortunately expired and leaves you with both legs in the 21st century.

-Kinda Muzik

This band of three members is from Baltimore in the US but has on the whole a distinctly English folk sound. Perhaps this is to be expected as their band name is of course drawn from the excellent album of the same name by The Incredible String Band from 1968. This Incredible String Band reference is carried forward too into the music which is simple but effect folk song with some psychedelic elements occasionally woven in.

'Lows at the Highland Game' starts with bell chimes before a moodily atmospheric acoustic guitar refrain which leads us into the quite gorgeous guitars and vocal of 'Harbor To A Hill'. We have here direct folk song of the highest order, reminding of the simpler Dr Strangely Strange songs. The sound is very specifically English which is surprising given the band are from the US. 'Sweetest Lily' is a stark scrubbed banjo song with a wonderful melody. 'Slumbering Lioness' uses accordion drones that brings us towards James Yorkston's sound whose fans would enjoy this album greatly. Melodically the shifts between notes in the lead vocal hint back to the Incredible String Band influence.

There is a feeling of playing in a garden, delicate and part of the air on the next 'Autumnal Hymn'. After a solo vocal 'Bonnie Boy' we go into accordion and acoustic instrumental 'A Lofty Hill, A Shady Nook'. Next 'Dogwood and Sky' is again a vocal song with clapped hands and a sustained air of expectation. 'Atop A Secret Mountain' has musical percussion and a song that really does sound like late period Nick Drake without being slavish to that great artist, indeed it sounds like Dulcimer of the late 60s. Penultimate song 'Willie of Winsbury' is a traditional song also done in the last couple of years by Kate Rusby here done starkly on banjo. 'A Fond Farewell' rounds off the album nicely with an instrumental restatement of one of the musical themes on the album and then a vocal song which bids us farewell.

This has a been a very soft, exploratory album that has strong performances and one the band can build even further upon for subsequent releases. It's a great discovery and one of the more directly folk releases of the recent era. They deserve your support.

Reviewed by Mark Coyle
-The Unbroken Circle

The Big Huge weaves a stark folk pop spell on "Crown Your Head With Flowers, Crown your Heart With Joy," a bittersweet confessional of home spun acoustic pop that's worthy of comparison to Neutral Milk Hotel, Will Oldham and sounds a lot better than Bright Eyes. I mean Mr. Oburst no harm. I just think there's something dramatically wrong when my elder father calls me up asking me if I've heard the new Bright Eyes, saying “it's like Dylan gone flake!” I quickly set the old man straight and got off a copy of this sad warm folk pop confessional and reminded him that emotional directness and heartfelt songcraft doesn't have to grate the senses. Especially on the second half Drew Nelson and his trio weave some truly poetic folk pop magic from guitar, banjo, dulcimer, ukulele, recorder, accordion and more. Tracks like “Atop a Secret Mountain” and the epic story-folk of “Willie of Winsbury” will stay with you long after their vibrations fade. Speaking of the next Dylan… 8/10

Reviewed by LJ
-Foxy Digitalis