Strathclyde Suite, Royal Concert Hall, 17 January 2008

The Shee (photo - www.myspace.com/theshee)

THE SHEE have undergone a name change since they started out in 2006 as The Sirens, having discovered how many Sirens there are out there – “A million trillion”, says their MySpace site, with some slight exaggeration. What hasn’t changed at all is the confident uncluttered arrangements which can turn a simple tune into something richly satisfying.

Their repertoire flits from Gaelic songs to American bluegrass, from traditional Scottish airs to their own compositions. They begin their first appearance at Celtic Connections with the instrumental ‘Dancing on the Wireless’ set from their original 2006 demo, featuring their characteristically assured arrangements featuring fearless changes of tempo, key and time signature.

The Shee often recall Blazin’ Fiddles in the sparkily seamless co-ordination of their playing, though with a wider range of instruments. Fiddles (Shona Mooney and Olivia Ross), mandolin (Laura-Beth Salter), accordion and foot percussion (Amy Thatcher), clarsach (Rachel Newton), and flute (Lillias Kinsman-Blake) are augmented by particularly fine vocals.

Olivia Ross’ voice flows through ‘Tom Paine’s Bones’ with warmth and spine tingling passion, Rachel Newton’s rendition in Gaelic of one of the many songs of love and loss has a yearning quality that hushes the Strathclyde Suite, Laura-Beth Salter’s fine clear solo in ‘Chilly Winds’ brings a refreshing breath of the New World, and their harmony singing is effortlessly lovely.

Rachel Newton’s ‘Drunken Duck’ edges towards jazz with its asymmetric beats and syncopation. The piece, which uses the mandolin, harp and accordion in relentless repetition to build up an almost unbearable suspense before allowing the fiddles free rein to take things forward, is a very fine thing indeed.

In between tunes, their youth and inexperience is often apparent, but it’s nothing that time and a bit of focus on stagecraft won’t fix. Once they pick up their instruments the music flows as smoothly and expertly as even the most demanding perfectionist could wish. This reviewer would place a small bet that if The Shee stay together as long as the Blazers, they’ll be in with a good chance of outshining them.

The second half of the programme featured another accordionist who is also one of a new breed of contemporary composers emerging from the world of traditional music, the multi-award winning Luke Daniels. Daniels is a likeable Englishman who confessed that the PRS Foundation for New Music award had enabled him to rent a room from a neighbour in order to compose in peace and quiet away from his children, but he had been rumbled when the said neighbour had discovered him watching The Muppets DVD. …

Thankfully, there was no trace of Muppetry in the music. His suite Islands explores the common threads that tie together the musical traditions of Ireland, Scotland, Shetland and Northumberland and was performed by an appropriately varied ensemble of luminaries of the trad world including Shetland fiddler Jenna Reid, flautist Nuala Kennedy, and Tiarnan Duinnchinn on uillean pipes, backed up by classical musicians on bass, cello, viola, and piano.

Highland fiddler Donald Grant who straddles the boundaries of traditional and chamber music and worked with Luke on the arrangements for the suite, was billed to be part of the evening but was unfortunately unable to be there.

The suite was preceded by a leisurely stroll through the various musical territories, starting with a trio of tunes from the Borders before moving to Ireland for a treatment of the haunting seventeenth century ‘Sidhe Beag agus Sidhe Mor’ by the blind Irish harper, Turlough O’Carolan, and a sparky set comprising ‘Mrs Kenny’s Barndance’, ‘Spike Island Lasses’ and ‘Bunker Hill’.

Next up, a trio of Northumberland tunes; ‘Shearer’s Arrival’ (the Newcastle footballer, not the woolgatherers ), ’93 Not Out’, and ‘Pippa Sandford’, where the piano playing had a definite and not unwelcome hint of Jerry Lee Lewis.

Then came what was for me the high point of the evening, the duo of Jenna Reid and Nuala Kennedy playing first a Shetland tune, then ‘Maggie’s Ceilidh Croft’, and finally Adam Sutherland’s ‘Road to Errogie’, all with compelling, brilliant intensity. The audience were now completely warmed up, and the ensemble (sans Kennedy) began the first of the three movements, or “lumps”, as Daniels described them, which make up “Islands”.

Tackling this theme in three movements immediately invites comparisons with Vaughan Williams’ enduringly popular English Folk Song Suite, which weaves together a handful of folk tunes ranging from the plaintive ‘Seventeen Come Sunday’ to the rousing ‘Blow Away the Morning Dew’.

In Islands, Daniels has succeeded in creating some very beautiful soundscapes evoking a genuine feel for regional spirit, but the linkage between these sections often lost strength and focus, leading to an overall lack of coherence by comparison with the work’s twentieth century predecessor.

Similarly it felt sometimes as though there was a distance between the traditional and the classical members of the ensemble, possibly due to the lack of Donald Grant’s presence to bridge the gap. Nuala Kennedy returned for the conclusion of the evening, ‘Banks of the Bonnie North Tyne’, which, while presumably a good tune for a rousing singalong south of the Border, did not seem to be very familiar to the Glasgow audience.

Overall, however, this was a courageous, worthwhile treatment of traditional music and an excellent addition to the Celtic Connections programme.

© Jennie Macfie, 2008

Links

• Celtic Connections