Circulus "Clocks Are Like People" 2006

Looking as though they've been dreamed up by English Heritage as a fine example of Ye Olde Merry England, Circulus are folk revivalists in the most kitsch sense of the word.

With one foot in the rock-folk fusion of the 1970s, and the other firmly in Renaissance England, second album Clocks Are Like People marries fat Moog synthisers with blended flutes and baroque guitars to produce a record that sounds suspiciously like a Morris dance given a prog-rock makeover.

This album is less twee and more psychedelic than its predesescor, and while, with its stirring pipes and ersatz feel is often patently absurd, it also contains some lovely pastoral moments, notably the mournful, autumnal flavours of To the Fields. Still as mad as frogs, however, and likely to send purists running to the hills.

Michael Tyack: vocals, guitars, saz, cittern
Lo Polidoro: vocals
Sam Kelly: drums, vocals
Ollie Parfitt: moog, synthesizers
George Parfitt: bass
Will Summers: flutes, recorders, crumhorn, shawm
Victor Hugo Llamas: bongos, percussion