Music, Folk and Kenny Mathieson

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra - Improcherto (for HB)

GIO, Evan Parker and Lol Coxhill pay tribute to trumpeter Harry Beckett

18 Apr 2012

The latest in Iorram’s strictly limited edition series of albums dedicated to the Glasgow free improvisation scene features the excellent GIO with two of the leading names in European improv, saxophonists Evan Parker and Lol Coxhill. They perform GIO…

Tim Kliphuis - Acoustic Voyage

6 Oct 2010

Dutch violinist Tim Kliphuis is best known as a highly skilled exponent of the Hot Club swing style associated with Grappelli and Reinhardt, but this album attempts to focus instead on world acoustic music, including the unusual amalgamation of a…

John Goldie's newest album Picked in The Past is a tribute to the artist's influences

The artist presents his musical roots in a series of 70s rock covers

22 Jul 2010

(Watercolour Music) John Goldie has earned a considerable reputation as a jazz guitarist, but his personal musical roots go back to 70s rock, and this is his tribute to that era, albeit played on acoustic guitar. It all started when he worked out a…

Jan Garbarek & Trilok Gurtu

12 Jan 2010

Saxophonist Jan Garbarek’s long-standing influence from Norwegian folk music picks up on an equally well-established strand in the Celtic Connections programme, but there will be a much more broad-ranging musical canvas explored in the two concerts in…

TMSA - Young Trad Tour 2009

15 Oct 2009

The bands assembled annually by the Traditional Music and Song Association for the Young Trad Tour draw their personnel from the finalists in the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year award, fought out each January at Celtic Connections in Glasgow.

Mhairi Hall Trio - Cairngorm

2 Oct 2009

Aviemore-born pianist Mhairi Hall dragged a piano to the top of Cairngorm (well, with a bit of help) to launch this album, an appropriate enough gesture for a record very much steeped in the landscape and ethos of her native Strathspey. Not…

Martin Simpson - True Stories

3 Sep 2009

Martin Simpson is probably most revered as a guitarist, and his prowess on both guitars and banjo is entirely evident on this follow-up to his award-winning 2007 release Prodigal Son, both on two dazzling instrumental tracks and accompanying his…

Malinky

Facing up to change

20 Aug 2009

Malinky have been around on the Scottish folk scene for over a decade now, and went through a scenario that many young bands face – the loss of a particularly prominent member to a solo career. The band initially got together to allow singer Karine…

Preston Reed

Under the hammer

20 Aug 2009

Guitarist Preston Reed is a dazzling exponent of the guitar technique broadly known as ‘hammering-on’, a percussive method of playing on the neck that looks as impressive as it sounds. You can get a flavour from his CDs, but there is no substitute for…

Women in Harmony

Out of the Kitchen

14 Aug 2009

Women in Harmony is a self-described ‘girly trio’ consisting of three well-established Scottish singers and instrumentalists, Karine Polwart, Annie Grace and Corrina Hewat. The trio grew out of an informal get-together in Corrina’s kitchen back in…

Eric Bogle & John Munro

Bidding a Fond Farewell

13 Aug 2009

FOLK In this Year of Homecoming, Scots-born singer and songwriter Eric Bogle is in the midst of a farewell to his homeland, having announced his intention to give up the touring game after this current excursion with fellow expat John Munro. Bogle…

Music from the Penguin Cafe

Revisiting a musical phenomenon

6 Aug 2009

The death of Simon Jeffes in 1997 seemed to bring an end to the intriguing story of the Penguin Café Orchestra. Jeffes had founded the group in the early 70s as a vehicle for his musical concept, which – as he told me when I interviewed him in 1994…

Blazin' Fiddles

New face among the fiddles

6 Aug 2009

Blazin’ Fiddles first appeared on the Scottish folk scene for a series of concerts at the old Highland Festival a decade ago. They were supposedly only getting together as a one-off project, but proved such a success that they became a fixture. Duncan…

Shooglenifty at the Fringe - Keep on Shooglin’

29 Jul 2009

When Shooglenifty burst onto the Scottish folk scene in the early 90s playing their radical new take on traditional music-meets-club culture (quickly dubbed ‘acid croft’), their impact was enormous. According to co-founder Garry Finlayson, there was no…

Colin Steele - Stramash

29 Jul 2009

JAZZ/FOLK (Gadgemo Records) Colin Steele’s ambitious jazz-meets-folk project made a striking impression when first heard live back in 2006 and retains much of its adventure and imagination in this excellent studio recording. His genre-crossing…

Borders Tunesmiths - Borders Traditions Vol. 6

23 Jul 2009

The Borders Traditions series of CDs issued by the Scottish Borders Council to showcase the traditional music of the area has generally concentrated on precisely that, but this sixth volume in the sequence takes a slightly different tack by offering new…

Peatbog Faeries: Live

9 Jul 2009

The Skye-based fusion outfit never let up in energy or intensity in the course of this first live recording, taken from concerts in Edinburgh and Durham last year. It will surely satisfy those who feel the band’s studio outings don’t quite reflect the…

2Duos - Until The Cows Come Home

11 Jun 2009

An unusual twist on the kind of Euro collaborations that have become familiar on the Scottish folk scene, often with Scandinavian musicians. 2Duos combines well-established pairings from Scotland and Germany as Aaron Jones and Claire Mann team up to…

Christy Moore: Listen

28 May 2009

Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ may be among the most unlikely songs Christy Moore has ever covered, but the success of his re-working of the band’s tribute to the late Syd Barrett is very precisely indicative of his ability to take over a…

Lau: Arc Light

14 May 2009

Lau have established themselves as the hottest band out there on the Scottish folk scene over the last eighteen months on the basis of their gripping live performances, and if their recordings haven’t yet quite matched the on-stage excitement, Arc Light…

Rachel Hair: The Lucky Smile

14 May 2009

Harpist Rachel Hair builds on her promising solo debut release, Hubcaps & Potholes, with this more expansive and subtly jazz-inflected disc. It is built around a basic trio featuring her harp, Andy Sharkey’s double bass and Paul Tracey’s guitar, with…

Lauren MacColl - Strewn With Ribbons

16 Apr 2009

(Make Believe Records) Fiddler ’s well-received debut album from 2007, When Leaves Fall, was one of the recordings chosen for Celtic Connections’ Classic Album series of concerts earlier this year. If that slightly premature accolade overstated its…

Alyth - People Like Me

2 Apr 2009

FOLK Derby-based Navigator Records has established a significant presence on the Scottish folk scene in the past year or so, and now adds Alyth to a roster that also includes Lau, Kris Drever, John McCusker, Martin Green and rootsy singer-songwriter…

The Martin Green Machine - First Sighting

19 Mar 2009

FOLK Accordionist Martin Green unleashed the Green Machine as a New Voices commission at Celtic Connections in 2006, with guitarist Tom Cook as his principal co-collaborator, and a powerful band willing and able to take on his iconoclastic vision. I…

Catriona McKay

5 Mar 2009

PREVIEW FOLK CATRIONA MCKAY Harpist Catriona McKay may be best known for her role in Fiddler’s Bid and her duo with Chris Stout, another mainstay of the Shetland outfit, but she is also an innovative explorer of less well-travelled musical…