f92


She is well-served by both her accompa- nists throughout but particularly by Tracey whose playing has all the qualities associated with those unique Cape Breton syncopated piano backings.


Both albums reflect the higher standard of attractive artistic design that has become the norm in digipak presentation.


www.discovery-records.com Vic Smith


STRANNIKI Light Moon Sketis SKMR 108


VASILYEV VECHER Siberia Land Sketis SKMR 106


VASILY EVHIMOVICH Vasya Was Here Sketis SKMR 107


Himmerland


award. His fine tenor voice works well on his choice of songs – nearly all Scottish, many well-known – and is decidedly easy on the ear. Contemporary numbers such as Brian Mac- Neill’s Trysting Fair At Falkirk and Alan Reid’s Just A Boy sit happily alongside Burns and the traditional, there are fine performances of John Condon and Ian McCalman’s The Shian Road, and a couple of his own songs.


He ably accompanies himself on guitar (a man of taste, playing a lovely Thornbory, as per esteemed editor and yours truly) while Moira Craig adds additional vocals; Vicky Swan and Jonny Dyer tastefully round out the arrangements and provide some backing vocals as well. All in all an album worthy of attention, and a pretty fine celebration.


www.greentrax.com www.wildgoose.co.uk


Bob Walton


HIMMERLAND The Spider In The Fiddle Tutl SHD168


The second album from the Danish quintet comes on the heels of plentiful global tour- ing, which has tightened their sensibilities and the way they work together. While the sense of the Danish tradition pervades this album, it very much looks out at the rest of the world, drawing on their touring experi- ences and what they’ve taken on board from different cultures. Kaszubstep, for instance, is inspired by bassist Andrzej Krejnuik’s Polish homeland, but there’s also a healthy portion of klezmer in the tune. What’s quickly appar- ent is how the band’s sound has grown. Kæreste Min Moder uses the soprano sax and fiddle to create a sound that’s almost orches- tral – certainly bigger than it should be with two lead instruments.


This time, along with the plentiful origi- nals, there are a couple of traditional Danish pieces as well as a song by Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish icon. With two lead singers (fiddler Ditte Fromseier and guitarist Morten Alfred Høirup) they have a broad palette of sound, and the mix of songs with tunes balances out perfectly. A word of praise, too, for saxophonist Eskil Romme. Although he doesn’t step into the spotlight often, his playing is the glue behind Himmerland.


The rhythm section propels everything


subtly, to the point you often don’t notice them, but if they weren’t there, their absence would be a huge gap. Not sure about the bass solos, technically fine as they are, but that’s just me. There are nods towards Nordic


jazz here and there, but this disc is a sign that Himmerland have found their direction(s) and are moving very much ahead.


www.himmerland.it Chris Nickson


ALLISON LUPTON Half My Heart Learig LM003


WENDY MACISAAC Off The Floor Own Label WMOTFCD1


Canadian females…


The big, jaw-dropping shock comes with the opening track of Allison’s album; the band sound so close to the Long Hill Ramblers and the lead voice so close to Laura Hocken- hull that it is quite difficult to believe that it is someone else. After that shock it quickly becomes obvious that here is a performer with a wide range of abilities; a good singer who can write meaningful songs, who has an excellent taste in her choice of traditional songs and the compositions of others and a fine instrumentalist on the flute. Highlights of a fine album include that opening track and another of her compositions, Over The Sea To Canada and a lovely waltz, Julie’s Waltz, with her flute matched against fiddle and mandolin. She also does very well with the Scots song The Lightbob’s Lassie.


www.allisonlupton.com


Wendy MacIsaac is one of the top fid- dlers from that hotbed of fiddle music, Cape Breton. For ten years now she has been tour- ing the world sometimes with her band, Beo- lach, other times in partnership with Mary Ann Lomond or on her own. She has also recorded extensively though solo albums have been few and far between.


The tracks on this release were recorded in two batches nine years apart. In 2005 she went into the studio with pianist Tracey Dares MacNeil and fellow bandmate from Beolach and guitarist, Patrick Gillies and a bunch of friends to record ‘as is’ sets of dance tunes from Scotland and Cape Breton. This was clear- ly a good move for they have the advantage of studio quality conditions but with Wendy seemingly enjoying herself playing for enthu- siastic mates and avoiding the sterility that can be associated with recordings of tunes when they are removed from their function.


The later recordings with the same trio were made at a local dance, where, as she notes “the sound of the dancing feet can give you an even bigger lift in your playing.” Lift? Her playing is almost flying on those tracks.


THE GRASS HARP The Grass Harp Sketis SKMR 112


For long it seemed the only scene bringing the sounds and shapes of Russian traditional music into present reality (as against uniform- ly- costumed state-approved ensembles) revolved around the excellent Sergei Starostin and his associates.


But others are starting to emerge, among them Stranniki, an appealingly lively septet from Penza in south-west Russia with strong traditional songs featuring hard- edged solo and group vocals from three women and one man, Viktor Klimov, who plays the traditional wind instruments zhaleika, kalyuka plus wider-world wind instruments such as kaval and bagpipe, and gusli, Russia’s kantele-kin zither, backed by folk-rocky gui- tar, bass and drumkit.


The Vasilyev Vecher ensemble of Tomsk sings, in polyphony, field-researched songs of the Russian peasants who relocated to west- ern Siberia in the 16th–18th Centuries. The subjects and original role of the songs are varied but, while they sing well enough and strongly, they make them all sound the same by an unvarying, academically glum, plod- ding style of delivery; surely the un-named source singers gave them more variety and levity than this? (The booklet notes, largely in Russian, fail to identify either the sources or the ensemble members.)


In contrast, Vasily Evhimovich, from the


Yaroslavl region on the Volga, sings tradition- al Russian songs with spirited, loud, lusty mas- culinity, solo with his hurdy-gurdy or accordeon, or joined in polyphony by one male and two female singers.


Most of the text on those three is in Rus- sian Cyrillic; the English titles given here are translations. But The Grass Harp project dou- ble CD has an English title and parallel texts in Russian and English, so is evidently seen as more exportable as ‘world music’, though it’s more of a first experiment than yet a con- tender. Taking its title from Truman Capote’s novel, its sounds are Stefan Charisius’s kora with thumping, clicking percussion, plus elec- tronics and touches of other ethnic instru- ments, woven around traditional Udmurtian, Beser myan and Russian songs, sung with quiet intimacy by either Udmurt Maria Korepanova or Russian Irina Pyzhianova. The first disc is a studio recording; the second, a live concert, has more spontaneity and liveli- ness, still kora-centred but with more songs, the singers more assertive and featuring more of the other players of instruments such as gusli and jew’s harp, occasionally interrupted by largely unconnected bursts of beginner- level stuttering laptop live-sampling-ism.


www.sketis-music.com Andrew Cronshaw


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