Will Pound and Jenn Butterworth

Harmonica and melodeon ace Will Pound and guitarist Jenn Butterworth – well known for her work with the Kinnaris Quintet and much else – transfer their celebrated live duo to the studio and their opening blues-inflected reel set would raise the dead and make them dance, as harmonica squalls joyously alongside the intense skitter and slap of guitar. They ease back for two Irish jigs – well-known, well-worn but treated with gently rollicking affection, before Pound switches to diatonic melodeon for a couple of limber, self-composed bourrées. There’s a solitary song from Butterworth – Better Things, a vintage but sprightly anti-nuke protest by Peggy Seeger – followed by the Queen of Sheba, ushered in with reedy gusto. A thoughtfully poignant rendering of the retreat march Battle of the Somme precedes a return to the frenetic in the Beggarman set – not so much musical dialogue as mutual hot pursuit.