f38 Fret Ye Not
In which intrepid Cara Gibney has too much fun and almost fails to get her interview with virtuoso nearly-Canadian quartet The Fretless.
H
ere’s the confession of a music writer who travelled from Belfast to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh with the intention of interviewing
Canadian folk four-piece The Fretless as they worked their way through their first UK tour. I was looking forward to this. Their recently released album of Irish fid- dle tunes, Live From The Art Farm, had been a gorgeous breath of fresh air. Whether it was the intricate layered arrangements or a simple deftness of touch that had caught me, I wasn’t sure, but either way, MacLeod's Farewell had carried me over to press play again, and then again. One more time …
However, said music writer ended up having too much craic with said Fretless to manage said interview properly. The sub- sequent recording is punctuated with long stretches of laughter, men putting on high voices, the odd burst of fiddle tune, inaudible mocking, and the occasional few lines of discussion. Suddenly it was five minutes before they were on stage and I was physically removed from the room with one deft swoop of a cello case.
Actually, that last sentence isn’t true, I got carried away. Nonetheless the only rea- son there’s any sort of feature here is because fiddle and viola player Karrnnel Sawitsky agreed to a follow-up interview. And that whole “Canadian folk four-piece” thing isn’t 100% true either, as a mere three of the quintet are Canadian – fiddle and viola players Sawitsky, Trent Freeman, and Ben Plotnick. Alas, cellist Eric Wright hails from Vermont. And indeed, Plotnick may be Canadian-born, but he’s now Nashville- based. As if the vastness of Canada isn’t enough to navigate in regard to touring and rehearsals and general connection; putting aside obvious talent, you must wonder, how have they made this work?
Making it work doesn’t seem to have been an issue though. Their 2012 debut album Waterbound scooped Ensemble Of The Year and Instrumental Group Of The Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards (CFMA). Their 2014 self-titled second album won them another Ensemble Of The Year CFMA, and in 2017 their album Bird’s Nest won the Juno Award for Instru- mental Album Of The Year.
The next time I was speaking with Sawitsky it was by phone to his home in Toronto as he basked in the company of his baby son. (He’s besotted, it was a key element of the mockery he received in Edinburgh). I was asking about the award- winning Waterbound debut. I wanted to follow up on his story of how, at that early stage before recording, the band had never actually performed any shows together. They’d jammed, and they’d rehearsed for ten days, but that was it. How, I had asked, does this turn into a prize-winning debut? “There was an intention right from the start,” he stated simply. “The goal was to record an album. So, I think for us it was always having that picture in the forefront. We were saying, ‘yes, this is a good time, but our goal is to record something.’” Later, our conversa- tion pondered the acclaim that Water- bound had garnered. “I'm not too sure but I think it’s the luck of the four of us coming together,” he’d mused. “And maybe … Canadian fiddle music was ready for the next kind of thing.”
hat “next kind of thing” was The Fretless; four individual tal- ents in their own right. Sawitsky himself has been playing fiddle since the age of four. As a child he toured North America in family band The Sawitsky Family Fiddlers with his two sisters on fiddle and his father on accordeon. “I didn't really think about it when I was growing up, it's just like you go and do your thing.” However, some ele- ments from the Sawitsky’s heritage added to their act. “We used to do some trick fid- dling and I would actually end up Ukraini- an dancing and playing fiddle at the same time which was a little party trick.” Nowa- days, with a lifetime of playing and per- forming behind him, his multi-award-win- ning style and technique are revered, his approach to fiddle playing is cutting edge.
T
As well as regular touring, writing and performing with The Fretless, Sawitsky is busy teaching, writing, and performing on a solo basis. Indeed, an aspect of the band that must truly keep things fresh is that each member is busy with their own pro- jects and separate careers. Take cellist Eric Wright for example: “The bass of the band is definitely centred around Eric,” Sawitsky
pointed out. “Everything kind of revolves around that initial conversation of … what are the bass and drums doing? That drives that kind of rhythm and a certain sonic element, a bass element to the band. He’s kind of like that big presence, he does things on that cello that I've never seen done.” Beyond The Fretless, however, Wright is a producer, session musician, accompanist, and an arranger for the whole gamut of folk styles. He is also half of the award-winning indie electronic duo Speaker Face, alongside Fretless colleague Trent Freeman.
Freeman is “almost, like softly, the band leader/extra percussionist,” according to Sawitsky, and it doesn’t stop there. “He is quickest and most adept at just being able to identify or locate something in what we want to do, and he has an ability to create an interesting voice in the harmonies that isn't necessarily predictable.” Outside The Fretless, Freeman works as a solo artist and his record Rock Paper Scissorswon a CFMA for Instrumental Solo Artist Of The Year in 2012. He also, of course, works with Speak- er Face, where synthesisers and electronic beats are paired with the sounds and cadence of violin and piano.
Fiddler Ben Plotnick is the latest mem- ber to join The Fretless, having replaced fiddler Ivonne Hernandez. “Ben has writ- ten a book on how to solo on a violin that is I think 300 pages long,” an impressed Karrnnel Sawitsky explained. ”His ability from his classical training, combined with his long history of playing bluegrass, American old time, and Canadian old time, that brings us to the next level of arrang- ing ability for the band that I don't think we had previously.” Meanwhile, Plotnick has appeared on over 100 albums as a ses- sion musician; he plays arenas and festivals with country, folk, Americana and blue- grass bands, he’s a producer, and he con- tinues to play classically.
These are only some of the grounding, progressing, various, and familiar talents and influences that colour The Fretless. The classical element is a thread woven round all the band members as their classi- cal arrangements and folk music meet in the middle. But the intention of their music, what they are reaching for, that is their main incentive. On their website the
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