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Reviews

Mormos — Live at le Chat Écarlate
(Bandcamp Windsailor Music WM-011, 1972/2022, DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2025-08-11

Live at le Chat Écarlate Cover art

Back in 2016 I reviewed reissues of the two Mormos albums on the Spalax label, and in the time since then, having reviewed a few thousand other releases, I’d completely forgotten about Mormos. So I was quite surprised to get a message out of the blue from Ernie Mansfield, one of the band’s members. He wrote, “I want you to know that I was the only Mormo who preserved reel-to-reel tapes of the original Mormos recording sessions. In recent years, I was frustrated with the low quality of the Spalax re-issues, and so several years ago I transferred the tapes to digital at state-of-the-art studios in California, and re-mastered them, so that they are as pristine as the original recordings. I chose to host these in digital format on Bandcamp.” I won’t go over those two albums in detail, since I’ve already reviewed them. I’ll just say that Mansfield’s claim about them sounding pristine is an understatement, and has led me to reassess the music, so take my original review, accentuate the positives and de-emphasize the negatives. The fidelity is amazing for recordings of this vintage, and the music sounds better than ever — probably better than the original LPs.  Mansfield’s other bit of news was that he has other recordings from the band, and some of those are also on Bandcamp. There are two singles from 1972 (“Llisten to the Flavor” and “Magic Stone”) which are very good, and include four songs that didn’t appear on either of the albums. There’s also a live album, recorded on March 10, 1972 at Chat Écarlate in Paris. Of the ten tracks in the live set, only six appeared on the albums or singles, so there’s quite a bit of otherwise unavailable material. As with the remastered albums, the fidelity is stunningly good, with all of the instruments and vocals sounding crystal clear. The musicians appearing were Jim Cuomo (soprano sax, clarinet, domra, vocals), Elliott Delman (guitar, vocals), Annie the Hat (lead vocals), Ernest Mansfield (flute, alto flute, harmonica, vocals, percussion), and Sandy Spencer (vocals, cello), though not all appear on every song. (And I swear there are kazoos as well, though not credited.) All of the performances are stellar: Annie’s singing is very strong, Delman’s finger-style guitar is superb, Spencer’s cello takes on the lower frequencies in the absence of bass and lending an air of chamber music, the vocal harmonies are warm and human, and the woodwinds from Cuomo and Mansfield are fluid and colorful. Anyone interested in folk music that ventures beyond traditional tunes should find this Mormos recording of interest. The performance may have taken place more than 50 years ago, but it sounds as fresh as anything being recorded today, and the skills of the musicians are exceptional. And now that I’m running out of superlatives to describe Live at le Chat Écarlate, I’ll stop before I start repeating myself. Make sure to check out the singles as well.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases, 1972 recordings

Related artist(s): Mormos

More info
http://mormos.bandcamp.com/album/mormos-live-at-le-chat-ecarlate

 

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