There was (is?) a fantastic band called Imagined Village who, over a few albums and some scintillating live shows, set out to sonically define what British folk music was in modern times. This they did by cross-pollinating older folk music traditions with those that had come to those shores with more recent arrivals. The result was a spell-binding array of what, for want of a better word, can only be described, accurately for once, as “world music.” I’m not saying that The Drovers Unlimited Orchestra had any set objective when making their music, but it certainly feels like it comes from a similar, American roots music-infused place.
The sad part of the story is that the man behind it, Mike Kirkpatrick, didn’t live to see this album released, but what a legacy he leaves, not just with the original musical vehicle, The Drovers, but with The Drovers Unlimited Orchestra and a series of genre-shaking albums.
“Tomorrow Part 1” epitomizes that sonic mission, a blend of ornate jazz, west-coast groove, echoes of Celtic roots music, and influences and inspirations from across the genre, geography, culture, and tradition. It is wild and complex, soulful and searing, primal and perfect.
It’s an ever-evolving, un-second-guess-able sound, one that tumbles from Irish shindigs into Chicago jazz clubs into festival frolics and off into the realms of the avant-garde…although that section of the avant-garde that errs on the side of the eminently accessible whilst being adventurous and experimental.
Something that the man himself said about The Drovers also rings true for the music he continued to make, “It was chaos. It was inexplicable. It was in no way controllable, although attempts were made. Was it the music? Was it the personalities? Was it the audience? Was there a difference? “ Not only does such a statement get to the heart of the music he made, but it speaks volumes about the intangible qualities and more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts nature of all such mercurial and magical music.
