The Blue Trees

With the release of mini-album The Blue Trees, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci are on a one-band mission to put folk music back on the popular map.

The imitation wood-cut cover design, inspired by Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, sets the tone for an all-acoustic recording that is as sweetly tuneful as it is wilfully anachronistic.

Instrumentals feature heavily (three out of eight tracks), but it is the cover song ‘Fresher than the Sweetness in Water’ that impresses most. Bubbly and countrified, this love song comes complete with dollops of doo-wops and a wry, whimsical tone.

On the other hand, while tracks such as ‘This Summer’s Been Good From The Start’ , ‘Lady Fair’ and ‘Face Like Summer’ display a zealous engagement with harmony, arrangement and production, this can give the overall impression of sweetness without substance.

Though the genius may well be in the detail, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci could do with stepping back to look at the broader picture.