CALUM STEWART & LAUREN MACCOLL - Wooden Flute And Fiddle
Make Believe Records MBR3CD
Calum (wooden flute) and Lauren (fiddle and viola) are steeped in the traditions of the easterly coast of the north of Scotland, their native Moray and Black Isle areas. Their influences encompass traditional music from Scotland, Ireland, Cape Breton, Brittany and Gaelic vocal music. Calum is at the forefront of Scottish flute playing and displays brilliant technique and emotion in his playing. He is now based in the thriving flute scene of Brittany which adds to his repertoire. Lauren is a previous BBC Young Folk Award winner, and the youngest winner of Instrumentalist Of The Year in the Scottish Traditional Music Awards. She is, deservedly so, regarded as one of the finest fiddlers of her generation. Various tunings on fiddle and viola creates different resonances with Calum’s wooden flute playing.
Some of the tunes are sourced from old manuscripts – The Gordons – Skye Collection; a 9/8 jig from William Marshall; Tomnahurich / traditional reel – Pipe Major Donald MacLeod, a man responsible for many of the best Scottish pipe tunes; A Highland Lamentation – James Oswald’s mid 18th Century Caledonian Pocket Companion. Calum and Lauren also compose their own tunes – Alzen, written before sunrise in the abandoned Chapelle de Sainte Croix in the Ariege region of Southern France – great inspiration. Aileen’s Slow Jig / The Old Road North – for Calum’s daughter and a reel for the last leg of the journey home to Moray. The Crow Road Croft – a happy tune for a little highland croft in the middle of Glasgow.
The sound is raw at times, very reminiscent of far older traditional recordings – very intimate and immediate. They are joined on some tracks by Andy May (harmonium) and Eamon Doorley (bouzouki).
Calum and Lauren say the music has been inspired by many others that have gone before – the raw, the fiercely traditional, the beautiful and the bold – inspiration that has been reproduced here very eloquently. Highly enjoyable.
Kathy & Bob Drage
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this CD online from The Listening Post The Listening Post is the CD mailorder service of The Living Tradition magazine. This album was reviewed in Issue 94 of The Living Tradition magazine. |