Old Blue Witch – Fit and The Conniptions (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

In these times of descriptive hyperbole and overstatement it seems as if a day doesn’t go by without a “totally unique” band being wafted my way. But the fact is that these one in a million bands crop up nine times out of ten, and when they do it seems as if they are built merely from the off cuts of what ever fickle fashion trend has just breezed through. That is what makes bands such as Fit and The Conniptions so vital, for without trying too hard they embody originality, a quintessential Englishness and a flaunting of rules, or at least fashion, but in a wholly natural way, one comes from the very make-up of their mercurial musical genes rather than as the result of a PR company middle management meeting.

Old Blue Witch is a wonderful collection of slick anti-folk, warped baroque pop, bluesy meanderings, strange, celtic jiggery, political pokery and no shortage of accessible melody and infectious hooks. There are threads of early, pre-orchestral Jethro Tull, Leonard Cohen poeticism, Attila The Stockbroker subject matter and more muscular Pentangle sweetness, all woven into a design which knows its musical history yet is contemporary and alternative, not to mention subversive.

It is an ever-shifting album, one that you are never going to quite pin down with a label or genre, even my descriptive ramblings above leaves out more than it actually addresses. But I would have to say that this is an album that could only have been made in England. Not in a Brexity, flag waving sort of way, but more as a reminder of what a unique and weird make up of ideas, thoughts, sounds and cultures we actually are, and they don’t come more unique than Fit and The Conniptions. That’s a good thing, right? Quite right!

To find out more, buy the album and generally immerse yourself in the world of Fit and The Conniptions, follow this link.