Put down that zither and come hither

>> The Mediaeval Baebes have come for your children. And grandparents

by CHRIS YURKIW

I really can't do any better than the sensational scribes in the promotion department at Virgin Records U.K., who I imagine were the first to write about the Mediaeval Baebes, so let's just let them have the floor, shall we?

"The Mediaeval Baebes... Sexing Fourteenth Century Shagbutt Era Sounds... The Baebes--multinational, septilingual, lager-swilling, smoking, cursing, tattooed sex goddesses--are weird sisters in the world of medieval music..."

Really! Better book an interview--and fast. With all those hooks they must do TONS of media. But there are 12 of them, so someone's gotta be available!

Quickly enough I'm sharing a transatlantic line with Ruth Galloway ("...grew up in Seal Chart near Sevenoaks, Kent," goes the bio, "studied the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University..."). Ruth is talking to me from what Virgin likes to call MBHQ, the ensemble's "headquarters" in North London, a house shared by a revolving cast of the Baebes including composer-arranger-leader Katharine Blake, whose other group is the Renaissance madigral-mongering Miranda Sex Garden. Oh, and several cats. Just how many cats?, I ask in the warm-up chit chat.

"How many what?" says Ruth.

"Cats," I repeat.

"Cats?!"

"Yeah."

"What, meow-meow cats?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Oh," says Ruth. "Well, there used to be two but one of them got run over last month."

Gee, it's not like I said, "How many pussies live there?" "Or how many foxes?" But I guess the issue of sex inevitably comes up with the Baebes--if that's not overstating the over-obvious. Still, like one of "very old men" or "very young children" that Blake says love the group, I want to know why. Is it just that women are seen as sex--in pretty much any society or age? Or does it have to do with our image of mediaeval times being one of oppressive religion and repressed sexuality, the tension we are free to play with from the vantage point of the late 20th century?

"There's no overt sexuality in our act," says Galloway. "We're not really lascivious or anything--we're all fully dressed! It's more a sort of exuberance and cheekiness--a bit saucy, but it's not sleazy.

"The record company decided to go pretty full-on for that [sex] angle, so maybe that's been a bit of a Faustian pact. It got us noticed initially, but the downside is that you don't get taken terribly seriously."

Nevertheless, serious Early Music fans seem to be enjoying the Baebes' admittedly inauthentic but refreshingly popular take on plainsong chant. On their debut Salva Nos and the recently rush-released follow-up Worldes Blysse, it's just 12 voices, a little drumming, and 60-year-old instrumentalist Dorothy Carter, whom Blake describes "like a stoned granny." But really, did one not have to be a babe to get into this group?

"Oh no," says Galloway, "it was just sort of 'Come along and have a drink, have some fun.' And basically, anyone who's sufficiently exhibitionist and who likes dressing up and putting on loads of ridiculous make-up is going to look OK."

Mediaeval Baebes and Holly Cole with the Orchestre symphonique de Trois Rivières at Place des Arts this Saturday, December 5, 8pm, $32.50-47.50+taxes