Lightbox

*****5 STARS *****Absolutely Fantastic!I stumbled upon the album "Lightbox" by Spiro, while listening to Irish and Celtic music on Pandora. It seemed nearly every time I heard some song that absolutely captivated me I grabbed my cell phone, turned on the screen and saw that teal blue cover with the Spirograph wheel on it. Again, and again, I looked and found it to be true. Better yet, I would take a screen captured picture to save the photo on my phone in the Photo Gallery folder so I could find the song later by name and band. I ended up finding some 8 or more songs from this CD, not just one or two. I would be absolutely taken back by the beauty of a song and go and find it was another new song I hadn't yet heard from Spiro, I knew I just had to buy the whole album. Definitive, #1 Happy, exciting spirit filled Celtic CD out there, if it is Celtic, I don't know. Listen to the excerpt from the song "Binatone" or any of the others. If you like Binatone you will like all the other songs on the CD, I think the whole CD is phenomenal. I rarely find a CD where I Love every song on it! WOW!!!Sorry for the HYPE but this CD is great! It is happy, exciting, joyous music. You want to get up and dance while home alone! Close the curtains.

In 2009, two years before their groundbreaking and fully developed Kaleidophonica, the British instrumental folk group Spiro created Lightbox. Packaging design from Real World Records is similar and equally handsome: cardboard Diga-Pak-like but without plastic and with a rubber hub (which for me was not secure nor easy to use when trying to return the CD to the album). Like the subsequent album, the musicians often use repeated and syncopated phrases, much like Steve Reich's classical minimalism and tape looping (though here there was no such device or electronic overdubbing). The musicians are Jane Harbour on violin and viola; Jason Sparkes, piano accordion, Alex Vann, mandolin, and Jon Hunt or guitar and cello. Their compositions and arrangements employ traditional English tunes. Track titles are inventive, cryptic, and artistic, such as The Radio Sky, Captain Say Catastrophe, Level 2 Small Bats, and The Darkling Plains. Antrobus is a bouncy track; it is named for Peter Antrobus, a designer and jewelry maker. But I may wrong; no notes are provided. Antricham is in Cheshire, England, a market town founded in 1290, and its named track reflects that tradition with a country dance. I wanted to skip and dance to The Radio Sky. Binatone is a telephone manufacturer. All album's short 17 tracks are bright, cheerful, somewhat abstract, and avant-garde. Spiro's music is extraordinary. With dense, overlapping rhythms, resulting in flying arpeggios, they have establish a unique voice through creative musicianship.

Lightbox by Spiro is an astounding amalgam of various musical art forms.I hear elements of folk, classical, bluegrass, country, jazz and rock.This seems impossible but the proof is in the listening. The musicianship and collaborative effort by the players is sublime. Fans of Jimmy Paige,Tony Rice,John Coltrane,and Steven Reich should take note.

Lightbox is not as accessible as  Kaleidophonica  (which I recommend for first time listeners) but Spiro have delivered another excellent gathering of spirited music.These excellent musicians are best enjoyed live, but for when I can't I like to listen to the CDs full of entrancing, virtuoso music based on traditional and folk tunes which they transform into tightly-played and emotional pieces.If you like classical music and fiercely played string instruments backed up by solid accordion, give this CD a listen, and you're sure to fall in love with the pizzicato and Mediterranean sounding 'A Small Light in The Far West', the driven flight of the White Hart, the melancholy smile of 'I Fear You As I fear Ghosts', breathing-rhythm 'Level 2 Small Bats', and the wild river ride that is 'Binatone'. Each song is an emotion waiting to be unwrapped.The packaging is paper and inside instead of a difficult snap-in there's a soft foam cushion, super easy.

A beautiful album, the highlight of which, for me, is the energetic and uplifting 'Shaft'. I saw Spiro perform at the Womad festival to a packed arena - they were superb. This album has many of those that were performed. They are a purely string instrumental group, and the tracks have traditional folk song influences, but with unmistakable modern rhythms and production. If you like Spiro, also try the Scottish band Deaf Sheppard which includes bagpipes, drums, guitar and wonderful vocals.

Some CDs grab you immediately, whilst some take a few listens to reveal their full charms. Spiro's CD Lightbox is definitely one of the latter. I was disappointed at first listen, intrigued by a second play a couple of days later, and then completely won over. As you revisit tracks from Lightbox, new depths are revealed in the interplay of instruments; the way the melody is passed from player to player, the incremental touches in the dense arrangements, the shifting patterns of rhythm and tone.The track 'A Small Light In The Far West', based on the Playford tune Grimstock, sent me back to listen to the version of the same tune by the band 1651; and whilst the end result is very different, the underlying thought on this and other tracks is the same - take the tune as the basis for an exploration, rather than delivering a more straightforward 'tune plus accompaniment' performance.Spiro's arrangements have often been compared to the music of minimalists such as Michael Nyman and Philip Glass, and the influences are apparent in the incremental changes and the strong cross-rhythms under the melodies: but it would be wrong to overemphasise that aspect of their sound, as their, to coin a phrase, 'folk roots' are also strong. There are (to my ears at least) strong echoes of the English Acoustic Collective, Fernhill, and other notable acoustic traditional-based experimenters. The source tunes are meticulously credited and sourced in the sleeve notes, by the way, which is a nice touch.My only criticism (other than the harsh trebly mix, but that's the industry-wide curse of strong compression to make the sound 'punchier' and louder) is the way that several tracks suddenly just stop - Spiro do great introductions, lovely middles, but the ending is sometimes a little perfunctory and abrupt. But then the out bars of the powerful and energetic 'Pop' always raise a smile at their ingenuity, so that certainly doesn't apply across the board.This is a cracking album, worthy of its 'Album Of The Year 2009' nominations, and all the better and more notable for being all-instrumental. And if you're not won over at the first listen, do give it another chance.

Having come across Spiro as a replacement act at the Larmer Tree Festival I HAD to buy this - and it does not disappoint, even listened to in a London flat, and with dry feet!These wonderful musicians take the stuff of English instrumental folk music and weave and plait their instrumental lines together. Much like Philip Glass's music a line will be repeated, over and over, and slowly another line weaves through it, expands, shifts, develops. Wonderful, dynamic, spacious music, coiling and roiling like a great serpent across the landscape.The mood changes from St Vitus dance foot tapping possession to full and graceful, shot through with melancholy.Clearly, it wasn't just the mud and the sleepless nights under canvas which made Spiro grab me by the heartstrings.These musicians have magic in their souls and fingers!

This group are amazing! Fantastic disc.

Came here via Penguin café Orchestra and was not disappointed at all....On the contrary...very pleased with what I encounterd...Simply fascinating!