Northings

ALEXANDER SMITH checks out a band on a rising curve.

Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers

HOOTANANNY’S hosted one of April’s most eagerly anticipated gigs with the visit of much-hyped Glasgow band Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers. Support came from Inverness’s own James Mackenzie and the Aquascene.

The local act delivered a fine set of languid, string laden folk-rock, which at times was very impressive indeed. Their set boasted some genuinely lovely meditative wanderings; among them was ‘The Boat Song’, which demonstrated a range of musical and lyrical strengths which promises much for the future.

With a string of rave reviews for their debut, Home and the Wildhunt on the influential Electric Honey, a label which has expedited the careers of Belle & Sebastian and Snow Patrol amongst others, WBWAFOF are red hot at the moment, and the Highland capital had lofty expectations for their visit.

Fortunately they instantly found their Ennio Morricone-influenced groove with ease. Thrilling brass-whipped single ‘Hang the Noose’ really signalled the band’s intent; it was fiesta time on stage and the crowd quickly responded accordingly. From there they settled into a steady stomping chug and Hootananny’s went with them. What was impressive from the off was their ability to seamlessly blend disparate elements then deliver them with utter conviction and dynamism, while never becoming desultory or obfuscatory.

They incorporate country, blues, ska, rock’n'rolll and just about everything else, all suffused with an unavoidable doff to Morricone’s s spaghetti western soundtracks. Throughout the brass erupted in controlled explosions creating a real drive, while frontman Ali Downer stomped with a charged bark.

The highlight came, paradoxically, from the gorgeous, slower paced ‘Draw a Line’, which carried its own measured energy and really allowed Downer’s earthy Scottish diction to penetrate; it also gave the crowd just enough time to recover before a welcome return to stomping with gusto. ‘Twisted Mile’ was another shining example of their versatility, merging country, folk and rock’ n’ roll with a cool ramshackle energy.

Lyrically they explore some pretty moody territory, but it’s laced with interesting ambiguities and humour and often set against an upbeat country soundtrack resulting in a genuinely interesting musical conflict, which is 100 percent free from clichè.

WBWAFOF offered a vibrant, refreshing and at times riveting performance peppered with just the right amount of quirky chaos, and their effort was rewarded with an awesome response from the packed house.

With acts such as Mumford & Sons breaching the pop charts recently, more acts embracing a similar aesthetic may soon come in from the periphery, and given that WBWAFOF are near the very top of an ever increasing pile, opportunities to catch them in such intimate surroundings may be very limited indeed. Awesome.

© Alexander Smith, 2010

Links

• Woodenbox 

• James Mackenzie

GEORGINA COBURN hears Vivaldi’s familiar masterpiece renewed alongside Piazzolla’s tango-infused take on the seasons

VIVALDI’S Le Quattro Stagoni, The Four Seasons Op.8 No 1-4, is perhaps one of the most widely known and best loved pieces in the entire classical repertoire. In the hands of The Scottish Ensemble it was like hearing it for the very first time, infused with the elemental energy and vibrancy observed in nature.

Scottish Ensemble

Paired with The Four Seasons of Buenos Aries by 20th century Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla, the dynamics of two seasonal hemispheres entwined to deliver an engaging, hugely enjoyable and unique musical experience.

Dialogue between works is always a defining feature of Scottish Ensemble programming and Eight Seasons was no exception. The colour and vitality of each alternate movement provided both complimentary and highly contrasting sounds that captivated the imagination entirely.

The enduring strength of Vivaldi’s work lies in its visual element, together with the universal experience of nature’s eternal cycles. Returning to the original poetic text to evoke sounds more natural than classical from the strings was a noticeable feature of this performance, sometimes in an overtly illustrative way such as in the viola imitating a barking dog during the Spring Largo section, or with sheer brilliance in the squalling introduction of Winter.

The variety of sound possible within the work was also greatly expanded by the use of baroque bows on modern instruments in the Vivaldi sections, resulting in a lighter, more rapid delivery of sound. The substitution of lute for harpsichord contributed an interesting timbre to the overall tapestry, revealing The Four Seasons as a work of incredible subtlety, a quality not always communicated in concert hall performances.

Attuned perfectly with this delicacy is Scottish Ensemble Artistic Director and First Violin, Jonathan Morton, whose solos, coupled with the driving cascade of powerful energy from the whole ensemble in the Presto section of Summer or the Allegro of Winter, beautifully articulated the celebration of life that Vivaldi’s Four Seasons embodies. The enthusiasm of the Scottish Ensemble in performance is obvious and completely infectious.

Piazzolla’s Summer in Buenos Aires, following hot on the heels of Vivaldi’s Spring, introduced the audience to tango rhythms, percussive use of stringed instruments and strongly underpinning double bass, resulting in a heated, sultry mood punctuated by violent twists of high bowing. This sense of melodrama was expanded melodically in subsequent movements including the beautiful melancholic cello solo of Autumn in Buenos Aries.

Intensely visual, emotionally charged and cinematic in its appeal, Piazzolla’s music often resembled a swooningly dangerous Film Noir soundtrack, imaginatively blended with striking Latin rhythms, the playing of the thread of the strings resulting in high scratched sounds, or tapping and the thumping of the bridge.

Seamlessly woven into this cacophony of sound is the composer’s homage to Vivaldi, snatches and echoes of the 18th century work. In Winter in Buenos Aries this vibrant burst of fluid Vivaldian energy is interwoven back into deep melody so gracefully that one resoundingly heightens appreciation of the other.

Piazzolla’s Fuga y Mysterioso provided a much appreciated encore in this last concert of the current season. The Scottish Ensemble’s gift for reimagining the familiar and revealing the unexpected will continue with the launch of their 2010/2011 concert season (to be announced in full next month), including a performance with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and cellist Natalie Clein with works by John Tavener and Arvo P&aauml;rt.

© Georgina Coburn, 2010

Links

• Scottish Ensemble

ALEXANDER SMITH caught up with some rising local talent

28 Jacks ( © Alexander Smith)

WITH THEIR debut album scheduled for release in a couple of weeks, much-hyped local act Bronto Skylift brought their two man sonic assault to Hootananny for a mid-week outing, supported by super-cool French rockers Mr Protector.

The French band quickly disarmed the initially apathetic crowd with an aggressive instrumental opener, which set the tone for the rest of their performance. They have an allergy to structure, instead opting for semi-improvised, free-flowing arrangements suffused with sporadic verse; this gives their music an interesting stylistic feature, at times reminiscent of Television.

Although their set was fairly devoid of dynamics, and a couple of tracks clocked in at nearly ten minutes, mercifully, they were more Stooges than Yes, so they never became too enervating. Playing as part of their short UK tour, I think they may well have made some friends in the Highland capital.

Bronto Skylift generally don’t start a set, they detonate, and luckily this performance was no different as they treated the audience to a barnstorming mid-week preview of their upcoming debut. They demonstrated an emerging mastery of dynamics and a growing maturity of talent, while still retaining the dense, riff-heavy aggression which initially made them such a penetrating live act.

With no shortage of acts opting for a similar aesthetic, what elevates Bronto is the quality of their material; tracks such as the excellent Eagle/Falcon showed real melodic content breaching their ferocious wall of distortion. They offered an assured, keyed-up, controlled and often intense set, which eschewed standard musical norms for something more interesting.

They recalled various acts throughout, most notably Nirvana, but ultimately they remain pretty hard to tie down. Without wishing to gush too much, they are fast becoming one of the finest new live acts in the country. See their website (link below) for release details.

To launch HAIL’s new download card release, Hootananny also played host to a couple of short acoustic showcases from two of the featured acts. The first came courtesy of local collective Abagail Grey, who provided a delicate, low-key start to proceedings. They exuded a cool, lo-fi folk aesthetic, while retaining some strong traditional qualities.

Singer Claire Campbell’s vocals were impeccable, and there was some gorgeous musical interplay between the two harps and her piano. Songs such as Ghost acted as a fine example of her song writing skills, mixing her interesting take on the traditional with some underlying pop sensibilities reminiscent of Regina Spektor.

Throughout, the material contained darker lyrical themes which provided a potent contrast to the gentle, often somnolent tone of the music. This was an alluring and sophisticated performance from the skilled Highland songwriter.

28 Jacks changed the pace slightly with a sharp, stripped down set of well written indie rock material. Their influences are close to the surface, recalling the usual suspects from The Small Faces through to Brit Pop, but they have enough charisma and strength of material to sound relevant and contemporary.

© Alexander Smith, 2010

Links

• HAIL
• Bronto Skylift
• Hootananny

JAMES MUNRO finds a mixed bag in the Choral’s latest ambitious outing.

MORE YEARS ago than I care to admit, when I started writing about these musical events, my then mentor, sadly no longer with us, emphasised that I was a reviewer, not a critic, and that when reporting on local performances, err on the side of generosity. This could be quite short.

Inverness Choral Society

Bach’s St John Passion is a phenomenally difficult work, enough to make a professional choir blanch, and it was a very brave decision by Inverness Choral Society to take it on. Any choral performance such as this is a coming together of three main elements; the choir, the soloists and the orchestra. All three need to perform at their best to create a memorable evening.

I gained the impression that the choir was not as large as for other performances, so it seems that quite a few members decided that discretion dictated that it should be left to those with the confidence required. That confidence was rewarded; as was the very obvious amount of sheer hard work that had gone into their rehearsals.

There were three choral sections that really stood out; the opening chorus ‘Hail, Lord and Master’, the beautiful chorale during the Crucifixion section, ‘Thy name, O Lord, is shining’ and the closing chorale, ‘O Jesus, when I come to die’. Bach’s St. John Passion is not an oratorio that is dominated by the soloists for it has more than the usual amount of work for the choir as they take on the role of the crowd that is so dominant in the story of The Passion.

Except for some lack of clarity in their diction, the members of Inverness Choral Society performed very well and continued the steady improvement they have shown since Gordon Tocher took over as conductor.

When it comes to the soloists, circumstances dictate that the Society has to rely on the recommendations of others, and exceptionally for this performance, the effects of a certain Icelandic volcano had to be taken into account with two of the nominated soloists unable to make the journey to Inverness.

As the Evangelist, Canadian tenor Daniel Auchincloss carried off the lion’s share of the soloists’ parts. He has a fine voice, at times verging on counter-tenor, and he sang with clarity and expression. Beside him on the platform, the bass David Stout took on the extra parts that were occasioned by the travel problems, discriminating between them in small but helpful ways, such as remaining seated when he was playing Pilate, reclining in his gubernatorial throne. He sang strongly and clearly, all of which promises well for his future career.

Would that I could be so positive about the other three soloists . The plan was to have three members of the acclaimed Dunedin Consort in the soprano, alto and tenor roles which augured well. However the alto was stuck in New York and her role was filled at very short notice by Linda McGill, but she seemed to adopt the lack of dynamism of her two colleagues, Susan Hamilton and Nicholas Hurndall Smith.

All of which leaves the orchestra, Inverness Choral Sinfonia. In the past they have performed so well and it is hard to pin down what went wrong on Saturday. Perhaps they had not been able to rehearse together as much as the choir had; perhaps it was that each player was more exposed in what was a fairly small band and any inadequacies were therefore more obvious.

The wind section, flutes, oboes and bassoon, that plays such a major role was overpowered by the strings. Maybe they should have been on a raised level so their sound could be projected. And what about the cello continuo? Around me in the audience heads went down and eyes were closed. My mentor’s rule of generosity precludes me from mentioning names. Suffice to say that the cat whose guts provided the strings for that instrument died in vain.

In summary, if this were a school report, the choir would get high marks for effort and good marks for performance; two of the soloists would get good marks and the other three merely average; the orchestra – must do better. Overall, not one of Inverness Choral Society’s best efforts, but I’m still looking forward to their next performance, Requiem for the Living by Cecil Day Lewis and Donald Swann in November.

© James Munro, 2010

Links

• Inverness Choral

JENNIE MACFIE ponders the many facets of the harp in Celtic tradition.

Corrina Hewat (© Lieve Boussauw)

CELTIC CULTURE has always been particularly fond of harps; the harp is the national instrument of Ireland, in whose tradition Turlough O’Carolan holds a place comparable to that of the legendary MacCrimmon family of Skye in ours. The bass sound from a full-sized harp is a formidable thing, exceeding even the power of a double bass, and in recent decades many ancient harping traditions have been enjoying a revival.

The word International in this lesser-known of the many Edinburgh festivals was no idle boast, including harp players from as far afield as Paraguay and Thailand. There is something for everyone in this festival, with workshops for all ages and abilities; even non-players are catered for with classes in singing and percussion, ceilidh, step and Breton dancing, massage sessions, an exhibition and a programme of concerts in the decidedly Hogwartian surroundings of the Memorial Hall at Merchiston Castle School.

In the Monday afternoon concert, Paul Dooley from Dublin plucked a small wirestrung harp with his fingernails, resulting in a sound which could be described as a cross between a zither and a spinet, with a charming old-fashioned quality which often sounded like a window into the auditory past. Laconic and laidback to a degree which even in Ireland might be noticeable, Dooley gave a masterclass full of dazzling musicianship interspersed with fascinating details from the history of harp-playing.

Despite an avowed intention of sticking to a Scottish theme, tunes included Welsh feasting tunes, Breton dances (stunning), his own compositions, and ancient Irish tunes, but the standout tune was a strathspey from 1750 played from the rare full notation for both left (melody) and right (bass) hands, including ornamentation that would have taxed a concert pianist.

Like The Shee, the 6-piece girl band to which they both belong, Rachel Newton (harp) and Lillias Kinsman-Blake (flute) represent a fusion of traditional musicianship and imaginative modern-inflected arrangements of old and new tunes. Starting with ‘The Bonnie Lassie’, their delightful set went on to a ‘quite cheery’ Gaelic song about smuggling whisky to Ireland which used rhythm and emphasis to suggest rowing thorough a rolling swell of the sea.

‘The Rich Man’s Daughter’, a ballad of incest and murder, was strong meat for a Monday afternoon, but the audience loved it. Relaxed, confident performances with some lovely syncopated bass from the harp earned them a well-deserved encore.

The Gaelic song tradition is overpoweringly rich in laments – sweethearts are missing, unfaithful, or drowned, love is lost or hopeless, homes are abandoned or forcibly left behind – but Gaelic concerts are always happy occasions full of laughter and lovely lilting voices.

Tuesday night’s set by singer and harp-player Maggie MacInnes was no exception, helped by the inclusion of plenty of waulking songs from her ancetral Mingulay and Barra tradition, and by the companionable humour of her accompanists, Brian McAlpine on keyboards and accordion and Anna Massie on guitar.

Corrina Hewat followed with a welcome reprise of her 1998 Celtic Connections commission, Making the Connection, a suite of five movements inspired by that festival which stands up well as a pioneer work integrating the Scottish tradition with everything from classical music to jazz.

With a stellar lineup of Mr McFall’s Chamber, Donald Hay, Inge Thomson, Mairi Campbell, and the harps of Hewat and Mary Macmaster, there was no room on stage for piper Lorne Macdougall, who stepped into the late Martyn Bennett’s shoes from the shadows under the balcony. ‘The Office’ featured pizzicato breathing and wove the ethereal voices of Thomson, Campbell, Hewat and Macmaster into something quite unforgettable. Bouquets to all the performers and to Tim Matthew for sound. 

© Jennie Macfie, 2010

Links

• Edinburgh International Harp Festival 

• Jennie Macfie 

JAMES MUNRO judges the SCO to have lifted the standard of a disappointing orchestral mini-season

Thierry Fischer

OTHER THAN the period when Eden Court was dark for its rebuild, this has been the thinnest season of orchestral concerts that anyone can remember. And after a couple of lacklustre and forgettable concerts by the two larger Scottish orchestras, it was left to the smaller forces of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, on its one and only visit to Inverness during this season, to restore the situation and reassure the Highland audience that they are not in an outpost on the fringes of the nation.

Then onto the stage with a youthful bound came the young Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, still in her twenties, photogenic, bearing a Stradivarius, and a former winner of a major competition, the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, which is probably the world’s foremost violin prize. It is impossible not to draw comparisons with Scotland’s own Nicola Benedetti, but what Inverness got on Sunday was restrained, authoritative, assured playing that was totally lacking in showmanship.

Baiba had thought out the Mozart A major Violin Concerto beautifully. The opening Allegro was so held back that the audience were straining to pick up every note, but she gradually developed her performance like a long crescendo so that by the time she reached the first cadenza she had everyone’s absolute attention and they knew they were hearing something special.

There were moments when she seemed almost to be part of the orchestra, but then she rose above it while Fischer held them down. Her cadenza in the Adagio was absolute sweetness, and in the final movement, which jumps between a minuet and an allegro, she was teasing everyone with all those false endings, then turned to the principal viola, Jane Atkins, for a brief musical exchange before bringing the work to its sudden, and unexpected, ending as the music just fades away.

This was a performance that had only one thing missing, the presentation of a bouquet of flowers to Baiba Skride at the end. I don’t know what ‘Haste Ye Back’ is in Latvian, but let’s hope it is not too long before she returns to Inverness.

Instead of a symphony in the second half, we were treated to the Brahms’ Serenade No 1 in D major. Composed in 1858, some fifteen years before he began serious work on his first symphony, and while he still felt in the shadow of Beethoven, this was Brahms starting to develop his ideas for larger forces.

The SCO delivered this lovely six movement work with a freshness and passion which belied the fact that at least half of the players knew the work very well from the time when they played, and recorded, both Serenades with Sir Charles Mackerras (well worth digging out a copy if you don’t already have one), although that was nearly twelve years ago.

There were plenty of hints in this early piece to give a foretaste of some of Brahms’ great works later in his life, and indeed there could even be the seeds of some ideas that Mahler, not even born in 1858, was able to nurture. When first played, this Serenade attracted some criticism as it fell between the classical and the romantic camps, but a century and a half later there can be no doubt as to its endearing and enduring quality, especially when its beautiful melodies are delivered as engrossingly as by Thierry Fischer and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

There was a time, some years ago, when the Scottish Chamber Orchestra looked on Inverness as its second home. Those days may be past, but their tradition of putting in an extra effort for The Highlands lives on. A memorable evening that put the SCO’s big brothers to shame.

© James Munro, 2010

Links

• SCO

• Eden Court Theatre

JENNIE MACFIE hears the Treacherous Orchestra raise the bar yet again.

DARKNESS fills the Ironworks. A ‘Space Invaders’ rumble begins to build, so deep it’s felt rather than heard. The crowd cheers, lights strobe, pipes wail out the opening notes of Kevin O’Neill’s triumphant ‘Superfly’ – we have liftoff! Wearing mask and makeup which in a typical cascade of cultural references nods to Alice Cooper, Kiss, Michael Jackson and Batman’s Joker, Treacherous Orchestra are in the building.

Treacherous Orchestra (photo - Louis de Carlos)

Here we have thirteen young male musicians from the Scottish tradition playing intricate arrangements influenced by a collective musical knowledge spanning the entire musical spectrum.. .it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it works a treat, fuelled by great tunesmithing, intelligent arrangements, dedicated work at the sound desk, and a degree of male bonding not usually seen outside military bootcamp.

There are two primary musical clusters in the band – pupils of the late Gordon Duncan (Ross Ainslie, Ali Hutton, Bo Jingham), and members of the late Croft No 5 (Adam Sutherland, Innes Watson, Spad Reid, John Somerville). Secondary clusters involving Boxclub and Babelfish have all collided and fused to create something which is still evolving and never less than exciting.

The first half of the night doesn’t quite reach the heights of their Celtic Connections gig in January, perhaps because that involved a couple of thousand people packed into the Fruitmarket, while this is a couple of hundred folk in Inverness’s Ironworks. However after the interval Treacherous ratchet the energy up a few notches and throw everything they’ve got at the crowd. It’s a wall of sound; resistance is futile.

Whole sections of Sutherland’s ‘Shimmering Sea of Irkutsk’ could fit seamlessly into a Radio 3 broadcast alongside Philip Glass and Steve Reich. You can almost see sunlight sparkling on water as the flutes and fiddle modulate tightly around each note. A tight, explosive outbreak of percussion, a twisted inflection and in a trademark Treacherous moment the simple musical phrase mutates into something completely different.

Next, a classic Irish jig turns reggae at the edges and darts into a funky side alley. ‘How Many Cans of Stella’ is an unexpected foray into music hall singalong, MC’d confidently by Watson.

And so it goes, energy pouring off the stage, channelled through headbanging guitarist Mike Bryan. The tunes showcase in turn the skilled duos of flute, fiddle and pipes, accordionist and co-MC John Somerville, and Eamonn Coyne in his superhero guise of ‘Banjoman’.

In the shadows behind this eclectic array of frontmen, a solid foundation of rhythm is laid down by the mighty combination of Fraser Stone’s drums, Martin O’Neill’s bodhran, Barry ‘Spad’ Reid’s guitar and Duncan Lyall’s double bass. The finale is ‘Spree’, a tribute to Martyn Bennett, another late, lovingly lamented musician, the spiritual father of so many, including Treacherous Orchestra. Watson leads the crowd in wordless psalmody punctuated with ecstatic bouts of ‘going mental’. Hard to tell who’s having more fun, the audience or the musicians. Once again, Treacherous Orchestra have raised the bar; how high can they go?

Treacherous Orchestra play the Village Hall, Ullapool, on 9 April as part of their current Tune Up Tour. 

© Jennie Macfie, 2010

Links

• Treacherous Orchestra
• Treacherous Orchestra on MySpace
• Treacherous Orchestra – Tune Up Tour
• Jennie Macfie

JENNY MCBAIN enjoys a diverse musical journey with the Edinburgh-based trio.

THE MUSICAL trio Bellevue Rendezvous started out as a jamming session in a kitchen in Edinburgh’s Morningside. And the acoustic ensemble has managed to hold onto a spirit of spontaneity and sheer joy in the music – even when faced with a slightly wooden Highland audience.

Bellevue Rendezvous

An unfamiliar blend of instruments creates a rather exotic sound. Ruth Morris plays a traditional Swedish instrument called the nyckelharpa. It looks like a large fiddle and has a set of keys which fret the strings when they are struck. Gavin Marwick plays fiddle, and Cameron Robson turns his hand variously to the cittern, guitar and jaw harp. All are accomplished musicians and generous of spirit.

The group’s work is an exploration of folk tradition across the whole of Europe, from Serbia to Scandinavia via the UK. It traverses time barriers as well as geographical boundaries with some of the music dating back to medieval times. Many of the tracks on their new album Salamander are new compositions redolent of these strong influences.

The peaks and troughs of the tunes are as variegated as the landscapes from which they emerge. Some of the music is ominous and melancholy, but brisk and sometimes break-neck tempos act as a counterpoint to dark sentiments.

It’s difficult to say whether the Ullapool audience – more used to toe-tapping along with familiar Scottish tunes – was completely won over. But those who are keen to extend their listening repertoire should get a hold of the new album. It is an enjoyable way to learn about other musical traditions.

Bellevue Rendezvous are on tour in the Highlands & Islands and North East until 19 April. See website below for details.

© Jenny McBain, 2010

Links

• Bellevue Rendezvous 

BARRY GORDON caught the first Scottish date of the Shetland band’s All Dressed In Yellow Tour.

Fiddlers Bid (Photo - Heidi Pearson)

EVEN THOUGH they’re an instrumental band at heart, the members of Fiddlers’ Bid aren’t exactly shy when it comes to speaking in front of a microphone. Take Bid’s chief yarn-spinner, Maurice Henderson, here for example, man who could easily carve out a second career for himself as a stand-up comedian should he ever give up music.

Such is the Shetlander’s wont for a blether, fellow fiddler Andrew Gifford had to forcibly remove the mic-stand to the side of the stage for fear that Henderson’s long-winded stories about eccentric Norwegian sprinters, curious straw-hatted ‘Skelkers’, and 80-year-old weightlifters would scare people away.

Thankfully, it didn’t. Indeed, Henderson’s plausible tales ­ just like Chris Stout and Kevin Henderson’s between-tune chattering – merely warmed the folk of Hawick to the band even more.

This was the septet’s second gig of a ten-day tour, and despite Stout’s fears that one of them might end up in The Priory as a result, there didn’t appear to be any signs of ring-rustiness when they kicked off with boozy combo, ‘Da Boys O’ Da Lounge’, and a tribute to Stout’s favourite Glaswegian watering hole, ‘The Bon Accord Ale House’.

However, within the opening ten minutes, Stout had shown signs of struggling with a technical gremlin, guitarist Fionan de Barra had fluffed a few notes during his one-and-only solo, while Catriona McKay seemed to be playing the piano with her right hand and the harp with her left. Arguably Scotland’s most gifted clarsach player, a waltz she co-wrote with a member of Swedish folk trio, Vasen, brought the sell-out audience to such a deafening hush, any sudden noise, you felt, would have been punishable by decapitation.

Thankfully, though, the only heads being stretched from their necks were those belonging to Bid’s four-fiddle front-line as they stomped, stamped and generally strutted their merry way through two hours of the most wholesome instrumental music you’ll hear this side of the North Sea.

With many gems to pick through, then, notable highlights included: ‘Midnight’ – a syncopated charmer book-ended with such nifty pizzicato even the first violinist of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra would have tipped their hat in admiration; ‘LK243′ – an ode (waltz) to a hundred-year-old fishing boat now restored to its former glory; ‘Tangerine Dream’ – a surprisingly uplifting ditty based upon Stout’s hopes for a Dundee United win in the Scottish Cup Final; and a rousing Faroese ring-dance tune, that, thankfully didn’t merit the 950 verses, Stout said, it’s been known for having.

The most charming point of the evening, however, came just before the end, as some members of the band attempted to sing a wee lament prior to the band’s opus and piece de resistance, ‘All Dressed In Yellow’. It may or may not be the first time this all-instrumental outfit have attempted to sing rather than riff during a concert, but it’s something, perhaps, they might wish to do a little more of in the future.

For now, though, we should just be thankful that the leaders of our fiddle-led tradition proceed to evoke their God-given talent through their fingers, and not their voice-boxes. That said, just don’t be too surprised if you see Maurice Henderson fronting a new series of Jackanory anytime soon. You have been warned.

(See Fiddlers Bid website below for tour dates). 

© Barry Gordon, 2010

Links

• Fiddlers Bid
• Barry Gordon

Sibelius Ping Pong Hits the Road

ROB ADAMS tracked down the two band-leaders presenting projects in this months An Tobar Commissions tour.

FIDDLER Aidan O’Rourke and pianist Dave Milligan have crossed paths many times before, not least in the folk big band the Unusual Suspects, and in the summer of 2008, although not working simultaneously, they both found themselves on Mull. There, at the invitation of Gordon Maclean, the visionary director of Tobermory’s An Tobar arts centre, they were to create startling new music in often quite startling circumstances.

Aidan O'Rourke (photo - Craig McKay)

The results, respectively O’Rourke’s An Tobar suite and Shops by the Dave Milligan Trio, have been available on CD for some time. Now they’re about to begin a tour for the Scottish Arts Council’s Tune Up series in a double bill that will see the separate projects reprised, and the eight musicians involved converge in a new piece that O’Rourke and Milligan are co-writing – even as you read this – through the means of modern communications technology.

I caught up with them as O’Rourke toured England with acclaimed folk adventurers Lau and Milligan criss-crossed Sweden with international fiddle team The String Sisters, and began by asking O’Rourke, an islander himself from Easdale Island near Oban, about his feelings towards Mull and the An Tobar project.

AIDAN O’ROURKE: Mull itself is an inspiring place just to travel to, but once you get there, it’s so welcoming. And An Tobar is the same, very welcoming, great location up there on the hill, good coffee. I’m sure that’s part of the arts centre’s success. But what’s really special is Gordon, the energy he puts into the place and the ideas he has. He’s one of these catalysts that makes a lot of things happen right across the board – folk, jazz, classical – and a lot of what he champions is quite left-field, which lends itself to new music.

ROB ADAMS: Did the commission have an actual brief or were you left to your own devices?

AIDAN O’ROURKE: I was asked to compose an hour’s worth of music and the original idea was to write about the wells that are dotted round the island. An Tobar itself means the well in Gaelic, and Martyn Bennett had his studio in the arts centre which he called The Well. Unlike Dave, who had quite a challenging experience [see below], I could have gone off and written this music anywhere, but I chose to hang around An Tobar for a week.

It was actually too hot to work – I found that every time I was in Mull, they were having this Mediterranean weather, with the sun splitting the rocks. So I’d go off and see various locations during the day and write music into the night when it was cooler. In the end, while some of what I wrote was inspired by these places, I found An Tobar itself, its ethos and the people who passed through it were the real inspiration.

RON ADAMS: How did you go about writing the music; did you have a set group of musicians in mind from the start?

AIDAN O’ROURKE: Well, composing for me isn’t a magical thing where inspiration comes and I jot it down. In fact, until I started work on the new piece Dave and I are writing for the Tune Up tour, I hadn’t written anything in about a year because I’ve been out touring so much with Lau and other projects. With me, composing music is graft. I have to make time for it and then sit down and the ideas will flow. Little things occasionally come to me when I’m travelling and I’ll put them on my dictaphone but it’s mainly about sitting and putting pen to paper or jamming on the fiddle and recording what I play.

I didn’t have a set personnel or even a set number of musicians in mind when I began writing, but I did have a pool of musicians that I wanted to work with at some point and Catriona McKay was one of them. She’s such an open-minded musician, as well as being a real virtuoso on the harp. So once the melodies started to come – and my stuff is generally very much melodically driven, one riff at a time – the musicians started to come to mind, too. And once I compiled what I had written I began to firm up the line-up.

Catriona McKay (photo - Louis de Carlo)

I already had Catriona on the list. Phil Bancroft seemed an obvious choice to play the melodies I had on saxophone, and getting Martin [Green] to play accordion, more from an electronics and effects point of view than the way he plays in Lau, appealed to me. I hadn’t thought about a collaboration with Dave’s trio but I steered clear of bass and drums and brought in Martin O’Neill on bodhran and percussion which has proved quite prescient given the circumstances of the tour.

ROB ADAMS: You actually worked in the room that housed Martyn Bennett’s studio in An Tobar; as an old friend of his, how did this affect you?

AIDAN O’ROURKE: It was really inspiring. But then, Martyn was a really inspiring guy as well as musician. He was a year or two older than me and he helped me through some awkward teenage years mainly because I was quite shy in those days and he wasn’t. He was so enthusiastic and so unguarded about what he played and what he knew. He never held back, he’d just be straight in there, saying “D’you know this tune; d’you know that tune?”, and if you didn’t know them, he’d show you them – and he could play them all on fiddle, pipes, whistle, all brilliantly.

So, I knew this room was where Martyn had put together his Grit album, which I thought was an amazing piece of work, and although the music I was working on was nothing like Grit, a few of the melodies I wrote were inspired by Martyn. More than that, though, just the philosophy that Martyn had, the idea that there are no boundaries in music, really helped me. Working in that room made me feel free to go anywhere musically.

I knew from speaking to Gordon as a commissioner that I could make the music as extreme as I wanted, although equally, if I’d come up with something straight down the line folky, he’d have been just as supportive. The more composing I do, though, the more I realise that this isn’t about me. It’s about who’s commissioned the music, who’s playing it, who’s listening to it. Having no limits sounds great: total freedom, but actually that’s quite scary, too, in a way.

ROB ADAMS: Can you tell us about the piece that you and Dave are co-writing?

AIDAN O’ROURKE: Ah, co-writing from afar, you mean. It’s interesting, and like everything you do as a composer, whether it’s finding out the capabilities of the harp – which I had to do to write for Catriona – or whatever, it’s all part of the learning curve. We’re both working on the Sibelius computer programme, which means that we can email ideas back and forth. It’s like Sibelius ping pong. I come up with a melody and send it to Dave to develop it or add his own take on it.

Basically, this is going to be the finale on the tour and it’ll involve all eight musicians. I’m sure it’ll develop as we play it because the common thread between the two bands is the improvising element. Dave has a foot in the folk camp and there are jazz elements in my band. Getting everyone together to rehearse is going to be a bit of a nightmare but that’s good because it means everyone’s busy. It just makes you think, though: how did people manage to put bands together in the days before mobiles and emails?

OVER to Dave Milligan, then, and I began by asking him how his connection with An Tobar come about?

DAVE MILLIGAN: I’ve spent a lot of time in Mull, and in particular in Tobermory. I think I did my first gig at An Tobar around ten years ago, and just fell in love with the place. Gordon Maclean has always been a great supporter of the projects that myself and Corrina [Dave's life and musical partner, harpist Corrina Hewat] have been involved in, and we’ve always loved working there.

Tom Bancroft, Dave Milligan and Tom Lyne (photo - Lieve Boussauw)

ROB ADAMS: In his liner note on the album Shops, Gordon admits to sensing doubt when he spoke to the trio about the idea; what were your initial impressions about writing music about the shops in Tobermory?

DAVE MILLIGAN: To be honest, I thought at first that it sounded a bit daft. But I’ve known Gordon a long time and I trust his judgement – so I had to hear him out at least! But knowing his fondness for an unusual project, and then realising its context – this was the last of a few pieces he had commissioned various musicians to write to celebrate different aspects of life on Mull – it suddenly seemed like something we had to do.

We’ve kind of made a joke about the fact that the performing-in-the-shops part of the project was what sold it to us, but it’s true. When Gordon first talked to us about it, he was pretty low-key and matter-of-fact about the whole thing. We initially thought that we were getting involved in a bit of light-hearted quirkiness, but after we got there, we soon realised it wasn’t so much about the shops, but more about the identity and survival of a community’s way of life, and that was a pretty powerful thing to be involved in.”

ROB ADAMS: Having a deadline no doubt always helps when you’re composing but in this case, you had a week to compose, rehearse and record a whole album’s worth of music with a concert at the end of that week. What are your thoughts on this?

DAVE MILLIGAN: The timescale was a factor, but it always is. If we’d been given two weeks, we would have taken two weeks. But we only had one, and we had to write the music and record it before the concert at the end of the week, as well as working with some local musicians and youngsters who took part in the performance.

The music was all written within a couple of days – when we arrived, the first thing we did was go round the shops and meet the owners and folk who worked there. [Drummer] Tom Bancroft did some recordings of interviews and sampled some sounds, and then we just got started on the writing.

ROB ADAMS: All three of you [Dave Milligan (piano), Tom Lyne (Bass), Tom Bancroft (drums] wrote pieces; was that always the plan, and as the bandleader what are your feelings on spreading the work in this way?

DAVE MILLIGAN: The plan was always that it would be a joint writing project, but I don’t think any of us really knew how that would work. When it came to it, we all just started writing individually without really talking about it – I think somewhere in my head I imagined we would eventually get together and try and contribute something to each other’s pieces, but it just didn’t really happen that way. It’s hard to know where inspiration really comes from, but for some reason we each were naturally drawn to different shops, so it worked out perfectly.

ROB ADAMS: Did you delegate in any way or is the album’s running order – three tunes by you followed by three each by the Toms – a happy accident? The album does seem to flow and work naturally towards a very logical, satisfying conclusion.

DAVE MILLIGAN: A bit of both really. Tom Lyne’s ‘Closing’ was what we finished the first concert with and it was a very powerful conclusion to the project, so it felt very natural to finish the album with it too. The order that the different shops appear in on the CD is geographical; if you start at the south end of Tobermory Main St. and walk north, you’ll come to each shop in the same order. It was just a coincidence that the first two were mine, the second two were Tom B’s and the last one Tom L’s.

ROB ADAMS: What are your feelings looking back on the project now? Is it still quite fresh two years or so on?

DAVE MILLIGAN: It’s strange to think that we basically recorded the music within a day or two, and in some cases within hours of having written it. That’s very unusual for any musician and I don’t imagine anyone would choose to record a normal album in that way, but that was the way the project was supposed to work.

I think our most powerful memory of the week was the concert, because that’s when the music really made sense in the context of it being a community-based experience. When we recorded the music we basically did a couple of takes of each piece, and then just kind of stopped thinking about the CD – there wasn’t really time with all the workshops and songs we were working on with the local kids and musicians.

So after the week was over, the next time we heard the music was a good few months later when it came time to mix the tracks. It was interesting to hear our own music as it was at the point of conception because even at that point the material had already developed from a live point of view. And even now, in some ways, it’s moved on a bit more, so when I hear the album, those particular versions of the tunes transport me right back to that week and to Browns hardware store, or wherever… But the thing I love about performing this material still is to try and keep it fresh without losing that connection to the people and places that inspired it.

ROB ADAMS: You’re writing a piece with Aidan for the tour. Aidan describes the process as Sibelius ping pong. Are you enjoying this?

DAVE MILLIGAN: Yeah, it’s a pretty interesting way to write music, but Corrina and I have written a fair bit of music together, and that’s generally the way we work too. I can’t really imagine sitting down with another musician in the same room with a blank piece of manuscript and starting from scratch: “OK, let’s start with an F-sharp… you pick the next note.”

It’s never going to work, is it? I think when you get inspired to roll with an idea then you have to give yourself the space to complete it somehow. Even if you only end up with a short melody, it’s still a pure creative statement that you can pass on to someone else and they can respond to it. Maybe they’ll change the harmony, or embellish the melody in some way. The interesting part is that they’ll certainly come up with something that you won’t.

ROB ADAMS: Are you writing with the instrumentation and personalities involved in mind, or do you prefer to shape the music the way you hear it in your head then find a way of playing it?

DAVE MILLIGAN: I guess I start with the latter, then try and modify it to suit the instruments. But I suppose that’s where the joint writing comes in – Aidan will have different ideas about textures and arrangement. It’s a good line-up so I’m looking forward to the sound we’ll all make together!

© Rob Adams, 2010

Links

• An Tobar
• Tune Up An Tobar Page (Tour Dates)
• Aidan O’Rourke
• Dave Milligan
• Rob Adams