Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 15 February 2004 then touring

IT IS INDICATIVE of traditional music’s rise in prominence in the Scottish Arts Council’s scheme of things in recent years that three of the first batch of ten tours in the new Tune Up touring scheme feature folk bands. Two of them, Malinky and Daimh, conspired on the first tour which kicked off in the central belt.

Malinky

I use the word conspired advisedly because, as well as playing a set each, Malinky and Daimh get together for a shortish third set which – to no-one’s surprise – has rather more going for it than the Highland vs Lowland “square go” which is promised and alluded to so much during the build-up that it almost passes into the tradition before it starts.

Whatever the extent of the bun fights on their shared band bus, pairing these two still relatively young quintets makes good programming sense. The essentially song-based Malinky, breathing their own life and imagination into typical themes of seduction, internecine skullduggery and highway robbery, contrasts with and complements well the accomplished and wide-ranging instrumental repertoire of the largely West Highlands-based Daimh.

Karine Polwart’s authoritative singing of the Borders ballad ‘Three Ravens’ and the exhausting, harrowing ‘Thaney’ are stand-outs in Malinky’s set. But the group also boasts fine singers in guitarist and bouzouki player Steve Byrne, who contributes the gently sympathetic ‘The Lang Road Doon’ and a now rather optimistic ‘The Trawlin’ Trade’, and bodhran player Mark Dunlop, who brings pleasing gusto to his ‘Newry Highwayman’. Apposite fiddle, accordion and whistle accompaniments and a rhythmic buoyancy carry the set along with pace and atmosphere.

There’s pace, too, and no little character in Daimh’s selections of reels, slides and mazurkas, with a slow air from Cape Breton offering a pause for reflection.

Gabe McVarish’s fiddling, Angus MacKenzie’s piping and whistle playing and Colm O’Rua’s banjo playing form a tight, melodic arrowhead, with Ross Martin’s assured guitar playing and the controlled rumble of James Bremner’s bodhran providing a powerful rhythmical impetus.

As a tentet, they both continued and merged each group’s policies, with much inter-band banter, and droll cheek from stirrer-in-chief Ross Martin. The first wrestling match turns out to be more of a relay, with Daimh taking the first lap and an amalgamation of fiddles, pipes, whistles and rhythm sections sprinting in unison for the tape. And the songs, particularly ‘The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie-o’ (although it’s still something of a work in progress), found Polwart forging ahead, but with a strong feeling for the tradition.

Malinky and Daimh perform at the following Highland venues:
Aros Centre, Portree,  Friday 27 February 2004
Village Hall, Claypool, Saturday 28 February
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, Monday 1 March

© Rob Adams, 2004