It can be so hard to love some Folk music with it's basis in tradition. The very sight of Kate Rusby and her sensible clothes and her Daily Mail face so full of contempt for the modern world with her legion of fans worshipping her for nothing more than the politeness of her music and the inane stage banter about jelly babies. I don't mind a bit of arts and crafts you know, but that world can stumble so easily into overtly twee territory that the chances of finding a bit of genuine raw emotion amongst that tribes choice of folksy music can be remote. On paper the Unthanks should be more twee than a home made Christmas Wooly bobble hat with matching sweater and socks, after all they're a tight knit sibling based traditional combo at home in rural surrounds whose stock in trade is traditional material. The truth is quite the opposite, theirs is a sound that is as pure and lovely as you'll ever hear and at every step it's clear that music is their primary concern. They're not traditional because they yearn for bygone eras, it's merely the easiest category for commentators to land them in; I doubt they care much for those limiting name tags at all, it's clear that they possess the questing spirit of all music buffs simply from the obscure yet inspired choices of material. Yes there's tradition but we also visit a Tom Waits tune along with material created by the chief Unthanks composer Adrian McNally. It's hard to pick out these changes in source without prior knowledge though, the whole set flows like a perfectly formed sequence right down to the closing reprise of album centrepiece and title track 'Last'.With 'Last' the Unthanks have delivered their most assured, complete album of music to date. A record that's perfect in every detail, down to the antique dance scene on the cover chosen to depict the importance of direct human interaction in an age when we spend too much time staring at computer screens. Best of all, and evidence of what committed music fans this bunch really are, they're about to release an album of Antony & The Johnsons and Robert Wyatt music. Ask yourself this; can you imagine Kate Rusby listening to a Robert Wyatt album? I picture her, a couple of tracks in, moaning in those flat Barnsley intonations "it's all a bit weird isn't it?"
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