Pastance – Sit Down Beside Me

Pastance – Sit Down Beside Me
Review by Ian Dearden

Pastance is an ensemble from Sydney that performs songs and tunes drawing on baroque, renaissance, mediaeval, celtic and traditional sources, as well as original material written by harp and lute player Alex Cronin.
Playing an eclectic array of instruments including recorders, shawm (mediaeval woodwind), fiddle, flute, baroque and acoustic guitars, harp and lute, and singing like early music angels, this is the fourth CD from Pastance.
Ranging from “The Skye Boat Song” to fifteenth century Sephardic (Spanish Jewish) songs “Morena” and “Puncha” to a haunting reworking of the Furies “Lonesome Boatman”, this album captures beautifully the superb instrumental talents of all the players as well as the soaring vocals, in particular, of Megan Cronin and Myfanwy Dibben.
Performances over the past twelve years, including the National, Woodford, Jamberoo, Port Fairy and Cobargo Festivals have seen this group carve out a delightful niche in the market.
The band has introduced more than 200,000 school students to their distinctive blend of folk and early music.
My lack of knowledge of the languages in which the songs on this CD are sung meant that I had to take the album notes at face value, but it is clear that Pastance are masters (and mistresses) of a repertoire that stretches from the sacred to the profane, all of which they perform superbly.
You can find out more at www.pastance.com and you can buy this (and previous) albums from www.tradandnow.com/shopping.