Reviews

The credit for John Fairhurst’s debut feeling different to that expectation is down not just to his talent but to the life that led up to its release.

It is music formed across the globe, from his travels to the Far East and beyond to his meanderings outside Wigan and it is shaped by everyone from Nick Drake to Miles Davis to K.Sridhar, the Indian Sarod master who stayed with his family when he was growing up.

John Fairhurst - Joys Of Spring

The result is a mix of music that sounds both born in delta swamps and in wailing sub-continental mountains. It is part blues and part raga, as far removed from the English North West as you could get and yet oddly perfect for a region that thrives on its multiculturalism.

That mix makes for music that is intriguing, unexpected and ultimately satisfying. From the opening toe-tapping barnstormer, 'Obnox Stomp', to the closing, rolling splendour of the title track, there are moments of enormous subtlety and fascinating obliqueness, as the 11 tracks twist away from what you expect such an album to be.

Add to that the fact that it is difficult not to love an album where the instruments played include tin cans, a washboard, some pliers, a pan lid and chains, and whose only vocal contributors are "the avifauna of Billinge and Dalton", and you have something that sounds exactly as the title suggests – an unbridled joyous explosion of simple textures, thrilling musicianship and handsome melodies.

Interestingly, the cover of 'Joys Of Spring' is a striking picture of a tree in full blossom, with not a green leaf in sight. It just goes to show that sometimes, what you expect is not what you get and that beauty, and music, can come in unlikely hues and shapes.