I wasn’t certain what I was going to think of this 20 track compilation. Goldoolins are a folk trio from Israel who’ve released two albums since 2004 and this, their third, is a mixture of new songs and tracks from the two preceding albums. Quoting influences that include The Beatles, The Band and Fairport Convention didn’t entirely fill me with anticipation though. Isn’t there something a little less obvious happening around the Goldoolins campfire? One quite definite inluence whose name isn’t on the press release is Arthur Lee: second track ‘Be My Friend’ and instrumental ‘Twlight Queen’ each owe something to Love’s intricate guitar mastery, in fact ‘Be My Friend’ has quite similar chordage to ’7 & 7 Is’. And Goldoolins could easily rename ‘Ocean Song’ as ‘Beatle Song’ without raising any eyebrows, sounding as it does so much like an omission from the ‘Help!’ soundtrack, and other names possibly missing from the Goldoolin list of inspirations might include Scott Walker, Tom Lehrer and Alanis Morrisette, such is the range of abilities and styles on display here. And while the trio might present themselves as an entirely acoustic group, some of the album highlights occur with the additions of other instruments – strings, horns, harpsichords, and while Goldoolins don’t stint when expanding on their basic format, the most effective moments on this compilation are entirely their own. The two longer songs on this album - ’I See Horizons’ and ‘The World Is Somewhere Else’ (eight and ten minutes respectively) are remarkable displays of form and improvisation that show the trio’s abilities in some depth and, drawing fully on the range of influences open to them, result in songs which reach way beyond the categorisable. Certainly, describing these as Folk is less than half the story. So, plenty going on and a range of serious talents make ‘We B Goldolins U B U’ a near perfect album for those long summer evenings; if we’d only had a summer this year, that is .
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