Moulettes

It's been ages since we went to the Haslemere Fringe Festival one Friday evening. I don't know what I was expecting, but somehow it wasn't a remarkably small field with a stage off to one side and a variety of food stalls and, for some reason, massage and aromatherapy tents around its edge. In the middle of the field was a possibly fibreglass statue of a bright green lion which rather reminded me of the old Red Lion at High Wycombe, whose original version graces the collection of Wycombe Museum, but looking in rather better condition. The drizzly rain swept periodically across the field as we regarded with differing degrees of enthusiasm a selection of performers while waiting for the reason we were there, an intriguing band called Moulettes who I'd heard on that breaking-ground for cutting-edge music, Radio 4's Loose Ends. They were well worth the wait, and the damp, occupying the unclaimed ground somewhere between folk, classical and alt-rock, and heavy on strings, like a less unhinged version of Rasputina. Mind you, the live version of 'Lady Vengeance' was as violent and jagged as anything you could hope for. I say strings-heavy, but as well as the cellos and violins there's a girl playing a bassoon, such an eccentric instrument I can't help but warm to any act not being a full concert orchestra that includes it. It turns out that Moulettes have been around for simply ages, and I simply failed to come across them before, which is very remiss of me. Their visual style is very appealing, too, a sort of very tongue-in-cheek neo-18th-century phantasmagoria of swirling planets, skeletons and angels.