CHARLIE PIGGOTT & ROWAN PIGGOTT - The Trip We Took Over The Mountain
Scribe Records SRCD07
The Trip We Took Over The Mountain is being promoted as an album of good honest Irish traditional music, played by the father-and-son duo of Charlie and Rowan Piggott. But it really is so much more than that. Button accordion maestro Charlie was a founder member of De Danann and subsequently The Lonely Stranded Band, since leaving whose ranks he teamed up with fiddler Gerry Harrington and then last year released a fine solo album, The Days That Are Gone. Fiddle player and singer Rowan, now Sheffield-based, is currently gaining a high profile as a member of the trio, The Wilderness Yet (with Rosie Hodgson and Philippe Barnes), while his 2018 debut solo record, Mountscribe, was also very impressive indeed.
This joint album is not your standard Irish trad offering, even though a majority of its tunes are of Irish origin. The net is cast wide, with jigs, reels, marches, polkas, waltzes, slides, hornpipes, flings, slip-jigs and pipe tunes and even three songs featuring Rowan’s lovely lilting style. Another aspect that sets this album apart is the musicians’ unique timbral combination of what might be termed “speciality” instruments: Rowan’s five-string fiddle with Charlie’s Black Dot Hohner Double-Ray C#/D button accordion. The togetherness and synchronicity between father and son is wonderful to behold, for they possess a combined instinctive ear for the progress of a tune both melodically and rhythmically, resulting in a relaxed yet commendably driven sense of onward momentum.
The sublime attention to detail in the music-making is complemented by the presentation of this duo album, akin to The Wilderness Yet’s CD, with comparable high production values and informative notes.
www.charliepiggott.net
www.rowanpiggott.com
David Kidman
This review appeared in Issue 137 of The Living Tradition magazine