Album: Jah Wobble

From his earliest work with Public Image Ltd, Jah Wobble has consistently avoided the more well-trodden of musical pathways, becoming an early adherent of various strains of world music, from reggae and Krautrock to North African drone-grooves. So it's a surprise - though somehow apt - to find him blending his dub style with traditional English folk songs. Recorded live in one take, this album seeks to recapture the spirit of the concerts that followed 2002's English Roots Music, with updated versions of folk standards such as "Rocky Road to Dublin", "Ploughboy's Dream" and a nine-minute "Byker Hill", on which the singers Liz Carter and Clea Rose bring ancient courtship laments and accounts of heavenly visitation to more modern life. With Wobble and the drummer Mark Sanders providing secure anchorage for the guitarist Chris Cookson's choppy rhythm figures and serpentine streaks of slide-guitar, the results are intriguing and entertaining. Alongside the traditional songs, slinky versions of Dawn Penn's haunting reggae lament "No, No, No" and Wobble's own "Visions of You" add variety.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Rocky Road to Dublin', 'Visions of You', 'Ploughboy's Dream'