Peter Knight: The Gemini Cadenza

Most will know Peter Knight as Steeleye Span's fiddler. This second solo album though is about as far as you can get from a jig or a reel, even a folk rocked one, as it is possible to get. So far removed that, notwithstanding the Steeleye connections, I don't really know what this review is doing in these pages.

Having said that, it is an astonishing album. With a mere nod towards New Age music, although with much deeper and more genuine emotion, it shows another side to a superb violin player. My favourite piece, The Life and Death of Mrs Pearson is haunting, scary, challenging and painfully beautiful - awakening something in me that I rarely own up to. Does that sound too pretentious? Perhaps it's the old hippie in me. The final track, the lush Goodnight, Sleep Well is well named indeed. Thanks, I will.

If you've only heard his folk fiddling, be prepared for a surprise.

Boz Boswell