Review: D.Foe feat Hannah Morris, Claire Delliere & Jennifer Ewan - Fool EP (Ramrock Red Records)

With a cover artwork that smacks of Christiane F's Berlin you'd be foolish to think that this is Ramrock inspired Bowie/Eno/Fripp nightmare re-imagined.

In fact, D.Foe (aka Mark Daniels and he of 45 Dip, Marden Hill and Sugarman) had a dream (not that type) and woke up convinced he'd written a perfect song.  Unfortunately, the radio waves had interfered with his shut-eye and it he later found he'd dreamt a song that previously existed as 'I'm A Fool To Care' by Mary Forde and Les Paul from the mid fifties.

Undeterred and more than enthused, together with the vision of Rob Clydesdale, they dreamt up a hip-hop, trip-out dub with a touch of swamp/C&W over a masters voice horn which was more than enough to get the studio knobs working over-time al la Mad Professor. 

If you know the song (there's many versions from Bing Crosby to Gene Pintey/George Jones) there's a strange menace to it, like a series of Cracker mixed with Pennies From Heaven (ask you grand parents).  

So D.Foe has to give it the full treatment of course as you can't contain such imagination in just one track or one vocalist.  So the 'Fool' EP has 5 tracks, with varying amounts of dub and boomp bap, 3 different vocalists, one sung in French and one by the queen of Celtic Cajun, Jennifer Ewan (and those Cajun's have a French cross over of course). 

Love the trombone playing as it evokes the sound of Rico (The Specials) and Ewan's voice evokes my inner Alex Harvey [which is a good thing] and the dubs are just next level; could do with more harmonica (calling Hay-eer-yah's Continual Harmonica Cut?) and Les Negresse Vertes weren't afraid of a bit of dub with their francaise which matches Claire Deliere's 'plus a change' (young Parisians are so French you know - well, it's Le Tour Femme avec Zwift yellow jersey time of year) and not forgetting the original vocal, by Hannah Morris (South Of The Boarder, but not that boarder, it's the boarder that put Ms. Ewan North of the Boarder).

As you can tell, this is nothing like D.Foe's collaborations with Ghetto Priest (see review HERE) but it's equally addictive - you'd be a fool to miss out on this one!

Artist: D.Foe feat Hannah Morris, Claire Delliere & Jennifer Ewan

Title: Fool EP

Release date: 31st July, 2023  

Label: Ramrock Red Records

Cat. No: RRR048