These days, the words "English folk music" can easily conjure a certain UK quartet hooting and stomping their way across arenas worldwide and scaling the literal sound of their efforts to match. Suffice to say there are countless other approaches, both new and old, and the Horse’s Ha, a long-running if rarely recorded collaboration between Eleventh Dream Day/Freakwater stalwart Janet Bean and journeyman singer/guitarist James Elkington, showcase several on their second album, Waterdrawn.

In contrast to their sprawling first effort, 2009’s Of the Cathmawr Yards, Waterdrawn is a more focused, stripped down collection. The band here is less an ensemble led by Bean and Elkington and more the two core performers-- though strings do still play a role throughout. On first blush it's easy to note the performers’ clear and open love of noted singers like Shirley Collins-- there’s that sense of immediate, focused performances done with little fuss, Bean and Elkington’s voices matched in close harmony without overt finesse. Similarly, their guitar performances seem unadorned and steady, bespeaking their experience by means of calm understatement.

But again, that’s on first blush. Though there’s nothing as immediately striking as breaking into a bossa nova-tinged number like Of the Cathmawr Yards' “Left Hand”, the Horse’s Ha are less about revivalism then they are the employment of their own easy-going aesthetic. For instance, the sudden punctuation of guitar at the start of the title track leads into a brisk arrangement that’s a kissing cousin of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” but with a queasy string secton that feels like a snippet of a raga alongside a sudden swirl of flutes. And it's anything but simple cheery good times, even while Bean and Elkington’s vocals establish a feeling of calm restraint.

Bean’s opening line on the first song “Conjured Caravan”, “Lately I don’t try to linger,” sounds equally at home in Appalachia as in Cumbria, while the sudden shift away from the sprightly guitar to a single violin towards the song's end adds subtle drama to an already strong number about starting something up and hitting the road. Bean’s differently cast lead on the following song, “Willing Hands”, helps introduce the careful variety throughout the album, as does the song’s shifts between waltzing paces, steady fingerpicking, and sudden stops and hushes. (That one of the loveliest tracks on the album is called “Stick Figure Waltz” makes perfect sense.)

Bean has general pride of place on much of the performances, usually singing first and in a couple of cases taking sole lead, but Elkington’s role never feels secondary. It’s more the sense of a well-matched performer happily contributing to a whole. Sometimes, as on the easy going counry-tinged “A Stony Valentine”, Elkington’s vocals are the perfect extra element: Hearing him sing a line of the chorus by himself then returning to back Bean at the song's conclusion is one of those punch-in moments as thrilling as the right pedal stomp or bass drop.

Track for track, the basic approach may remain generally the same, but something’s always changing, whether it’s pace, lyrical focus, or simply the core sonic texture (often within the same song). The stateliness that begins and drives “Contenders” starts with banjo, builds up with guitar, adds strings, and reaches a long pause for Bean’s singing, then continues while the strings glide serenely in the mix, a background, genteel tension that’s its own treasure of a moment. When the building moment is repeated later, the extra elements become a soft click of percussion and quick guitar filigrees, neatly avoiding a repetition within the song itself. The Horse’s Ha are clearly anything but slapdash here, and that’s the key for Waterdrawn as a whole, a wonderful treat from artists at their best.

(pitchfork.com)