The Shovel Dance

I guess their hearts are in the right place? They're trying to "decolonize folk", to focus more on the fringes, the oppressed, the less-than-mainstream identities, but... and I've written this in response to another album somewhere with a similar ethos: listen to more folk, y'all, because the songs of the queer and the championing of the oppressed have for centuries been celebrated right there alongside the patriarchal and nationalist tunes. I am impressed, however, with how the collective sees itself as leaderless, thus performing on stage in a physical arrangement that does not identify any individual musician as the leader. In a way, it's a kind of musical version of King Arthur's Round Table. Here we are all equal, our voices all of equal significance and weight.