CELTIC FOLK PUNK AND MORE – folKing around

Nobody Nows is a German band whose albums have got rave reviews at Celtic-Rock and RockKultur. They are not beginners, since they are celebrating their 12th anniversary now. Maximilian Heinrichs (keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals), Rony Heckel (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Thor Klein (double bass, backing vocals), Georg Mart (fiddle, guitar, backing vocals), Max Heckel (guitar, banjo, fiddle, lead vocals) and Jule Seyer (drums, no longer in the band) play a sort of a paneuropean music: songs and tunes from Ireland, France, Germany or Russia. But this label is not really right, since they also play American numbers like ‘Ring of Fire’ or ‘Ghost Riders’ and Canadian tunes. In fact, they tag their style as ‘post modern federal republican folklore with north east European character and east occidental rhythmic’.

‘FolKing Around’ has been released as a live CD and a live CD + live DVD. The songs are sung in different languages (French, English and German) and classical compositions are featured on some numbers (Brahms on ‘Katjuscha’ and J.S. Bach on ‘Guter Rat’). The setlist is a well-balanced blend of standards and covers that are arranged in such a way that they fit each other. My faves are obviously the Celtic numbers on which Max plays banjo: ‘The Creel’ (a song that was also recorded by another German band, Fiddler’s Green) and ‘Irisches Winterlied’ (the keyboards sound like an accordion), together with the polkas on ‘Titanic’ ( ‘Dennis Murphy’s / John Ryans’’), on which the piano adds that Canadian flavour à la Barra MacNeils.

Apart from those numbers, there are other interesting tracks. For instance ‘Ring of Fire’, ‘Katjuscha’, their Pink Floyd rendition of ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Hans bleib da’, a German traditional song that features ‘Scotland the Brave’ and the French Canadian reel ‘The Mouth of the Tobique’ (excellent fiddling). BTW, on track no.2, the fiddler also plays ‘Drowsy Maggie’.

‘FolKing Around’ is an enjoyable album, even if I feel that there are too much covers. Nowadays I prefer original songs to covers. However, if we take into account that ‘FolKing Around’ is a live album, the mix of fun and musicianship is the right one.

Kinsmarkham, CELTIC FOLK PUNK AND MORE, 02.2013 (PDF)