“The Crooked Fiddle Band are completely surprising: the music is original and quixotic, and yet has the strength of some deep and strong roots. I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything else like it!”
Brian Eno
“It is rare to hear genuinely original music these days, but when you listen to the Crooked Fiddle Band, your mouth will drop open.”
Bruce Elder – Sydney Morning Herald
“When The Crooked Fiddle Band took to the stage, it was as though someone had put 10,000 volts through the dance floor. Fusing an array of folk and world styles and completely turning them on their head, this band certainly lived up to their crooked name. There was no restraining the four-piece; creating incredibly diverse, original and complex tunes with an energy and sound that could have rivaled groups ten times their size. The beautiful and well-crafted set was almost exclusively instrumental, and yet their story telling ability through their instruments created a vibrant, magical world that kept the audience enthralled from start to end. ”
Kat Chish – beat magazine
“So this is what Sepultura sound like in a parallel universe where they’re a travelling gypsy band. It’s the soundtrack to a hyperactive version of ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ Awesome!”
Dom Alessio – Triple J Home and Hosed
“Wild mash up of styles. Jess is giving the violin a solid workout. Which is a good thing. It deserves a flogging at times that bloody instrument. And a bouzouki in the line up! I’ll be there at your next show if you shout the ouzo.”
Richard Kingsmill – Triple J Radio
“Crooked Fiddle Band continue their musical manifesto, rallying around the incendiary fiddle of Jess Randall to make music that will make grandmas mosh, punks tango and metalheads hoe-down… …Anything from chainsaw sounds to Nordic fiddling are all grist to the music mill for this dynamic young band.”
Andrew Ford – The Music Show – ABC Radio National
“Their live show crackles with an energy few other bands can match and their frantic brand of gypsy-instrumental music had the audience up and dancing immediately.”
Gareth Evans – Timber and Steel
“Great fiddling, top-notch rhythm section, ethereal female vocals and male guttural shouts. It’s obvious that the Crooked Fiddle Band know what they want and they do it perfectly.”
Kinks Markham – celticfolkpunk
“So what’s so ‘crooked’ about The Crooked Fiddle Band anyway? Well, in my most humble opinion, I’d have to say it’s the way in which they use their instruments… It has the intensity of most thrash metal songs yet doesn’t need heavy, distorted electric guitars to get that point across…sure to get people moshing in the pit!”
Jeff Francesconi – Metal Reviews
“This band really is a national treasure and testament to the infinite talent that keeps manifesting in our backyard… this group have re-invented folk music as it is known… The Crooked Fiddle Band charmed the audience into submission.”
Vanessa Lahey – Australian Stage (Oct 2009)
“…a short fast slab of hardcore gypsy passion…a fiery blend of various violin traditions with punk intensityand the raw finesse of crazed street virtuosos.”
Bradfield Dumpleton – Indie CDs
“…I’m taken by how effortlessly they are masters and mistresses of the mood, playing with and for dancers as if we are flexible puppets – willing eager recipients of the ebbs and flows… They are so totally in charge of the audience in the most generous way…”
Severin – Culturazi
