Moulettes (note there is no 'the' in the band name) are based in Brighton and are coming to a festival near you very soon.
Their "jaunty", "entrancing", "celestial", "idiosyncratic", "eccentric" sound is a melting pot of English, Balkan, Scandinavian and Eastern European influences which produces a genre-bending and mind boggling mix of baroque/ gypsy/fantasy folk.
I predict they will wow live audiences, win fans on Later With Jools Holland and collect Radio 2 folk awards so I'm going to be a party pooper by giving the record a lukewarm review.
Moulettes came into being via the friendship of Hannah Miller (cello, guitar) and Ruth Skipper (bassoon, autoharp, kazoo and trombone) who are both classically trained and public school educated.
Despite the formality of this background, they are not the first, nor will they be the last, to decide that folk-pop was more fun to play than more so-called 'serious' music. They set about recruiting like-minded individuals to realise their redirected ambitions.
Ted Dwane on double bass was a Moulette from 2005-7, switched allegiance by becoming one of Mumford & Sons and has now "returned to the fold" for this album.
Other guests and players include Ollie Austin (guitar, drums), folk-blues singer Liz Green on the final track (Blood To Thunder), Irish flute and whistle player Ríoghnach Connolly and banjo-ist Matt Menefee of American bluegrass band Cadillac Sky.
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As if to compensate for the sobriety of their roots, the core duo try a little too hard to convey a spirit of unbound joy.
The opening three tracks (Sing Unto Me/ Country Joy/Uca's Dance) launch the album at such a frenetic pace it's a relief when they slow things down for Some Who You Love, the kind of wistful ballad you could imagine on an Unthanks album.
The title track is a two minute instrumental with dervish like rhythms, while the madrigal form on tracks like Songbird and Muse Has Wings showcase the pair's distinctive vocal harmonies.
The band's musical prowess is evident but the recurring feeling I had is that the songs are designed more to show off their abilities than to convey any heartfelt emotions.
In other words, the songs come over as exercises in a self-consciously quirky style which lack the qualities of genuine weirdness that makes the American new folk so endearing.
I have similar reservations about Bellowhead and Mumford & Sons but if you are among the many who like those bands, you'll probably love Moulettes.
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