Product Description Musicians: Andrew Cronshaw - electric zither, concertina, hackbrett, monophonic synth, whistle, electric flute; Ric Sanders violin; Martin Simpson - guitars, dobro, banjo; Dave Bristow - piano, polysynth; June Tabor - vocal on "Ship in Distress"; Rick Kemp - bass guitar; Fred Thelonious Baker - bass guitar; Jonathan Davie - bass guitar; Micky Barker drums; Vo Fletcher guitar; Rachel Perry oboe This is a CD re-issue, with its original artwork, of an album - first released on vinyl by the Waterfront label in 1982 - by multi-instrumentalist, writer and leading world music figure Andrew Cronshaw. Nominated in the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music and Radio 2 Folk Awards for his most recent album Ochre , Cronshaw has expanded awareness not only of the variety of instruments he plays, but also of the music of Finland and the many other countries where he has researched, collaborated and performed. He is possibly best-known for his remarkable work On The Shoulders Of The Great Bear album and tour a few years ago. This album primarily explores Cronshaw s roots in English and Scottish music and was recorded with some of the most highly-regarded musicians in the idiom, including June Tabor, Martin Simpson, Fairport Convention s Ric Sanders and Steeleye Span s Rick Kemp. It remains something of a landmark in the genre, and has long been due for the re-evaluation this CD re-release will bring. About the Artist For the past decade or so zither-player and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Cronshaw has been particularly connected with the traditional music of Finland and other Finno-Ugrian countries, but before that, and continuing influences, are the musics of the Scottish highlands, where he lived for some years, and of northern Spain, with which he has been familiar since childhood. But he returned to English music, albeit viewed from an unusual angle, for his most recent album Ochre, which was nominated for "Album of the Year" in the 2005 BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music. Cronshaw was nominated for Musician of the Year in the 2005 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. The group of musicians he assembled to make it - Syrian qanun virtuoso Abdullah Chhadeh, Greek Pontic lyra master Matthaios Tsahourides, Welsh triple harp legend Llio Rhydderch, Arabic diva Natacha Atlas, plus frequent Cronshaw collaborators Ian Blake and Bernard O Neill, bring their own traditions to bear in a shared exploration of the exoticism of shapely English song tunes. Since 2006, as well as solo work he has been performing with Armenian duduk master Tigran Aleksanyan, and also whenever geographically possible with Australia-resident British reeds player and multi-instrumentalist Ian Blake. Recently he has become involved in aspects of traditional music in the Balkans, and in 2008 emerges a new performing and recording project featuring Serbian traditional singer Svetlana Spajic. February 2008 also sees the release on Cronshaw's Cloud Valley label of egar ivi, a CD of recordings of Serbian traditional singers in Dalmatia. At the heart of Cronshaw's instrumentation is a 74-string electrified European chord zither, to which he adds a range of other stringed and wind instruments including fujara (a 180cm long ornately carved Slovakian shepherd's three-hole flute generating shivering breathy harmonics) and ba-wu (a seductive-toned brass-reeded instrument from China's Yunan province). When playing live he has often been a solo performer, and during the early 1990s in The Splendid Venues Tour he created his own unusual performing circuit, presenting in the course of a couple of years over a hundred atmospheric solo shows largely in ancient English village churches. However on his eight albums he has been joined by a long list of other musicians, with most of whom he has at various times appeared live. Since 1991 Cronshaw has been involved in the emergence of new Finnish music strongly rooted in its folk traditions. He has produced albums by the band Salamakanne