Neither folk nor jazz, if a bit of both from Skreel on Skreel.

Release Date: 31st January 2024

Label: self-released

Format: CD / digital

As stated elsewhere, irrespective of what I went up with, I came away from Celtic Connections with even more to relish and relate than I ever anticipated. Including this, a doozy and delight from this new band.

New band? Well, maybe, but hardened players all in the remit of Glasgow’s vibrant melting pot of genres. And all bloody youngsters, at that! Fergus McCreadie, piano, and Matt Carmichael, sax, are each established artists in the jazz sector, if frequently working alongside each other, both capable of music that uncannily weaves the Scottish landscape into their angular and complex play, providing a gaunt sweetness other players strive hard to find. Megan MacDonald is the beaming accordion maestro for HEISK, seen here so recently, and Eabhal. Charlie Stewart? Well, where has he not been, since winning 2017’s  BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, popping up in jazz trios, pipe duos, neo-trad band Snuffbox and a harp duo with Becky Hill, let alone a tour with Capercaillie. Here he is on fiddle, but he is an accomplished jazz double bassist as well. With, finally, on guitar, that perennial of rhythmic guitar play, Innes White, effortlessly accomplished within whatever setting you desire. Are we allowed to say supergroup?

I came across them by chance, as I read my programme for CCFest, they appearing alongside Seonaid Aitken’s latest project, the fiddle maven and violin mistress, another player in Scotland’s genres sans frontières. Whilst I didn’t catch the show, I caught that there was an album to be released the following day. By the time I got back home from Glasgow, it was on my mat.

So then, what is a skreel? My prejudgement, given this meeting of jazz with traditional, was an amalgam of skronk and reel. Am I wrong? There is actually very little information with the disc, save the players, and the writing credits, revealing Stewart behind the vast bulk of it, with a tune or three from elsewhere, plus the input of good old trad. arr. And the fact that the album only appeared by the grace of Creative Scotland, who contribute so much to the lifeblood of new Scottish music.

Solstice 20 starts mellow with some strummed guitar, ahead piano rippling in, the two accompanying each other, unaided, until a fiddle stirs slowly, and saxophone makes smoky rings in the sky. Percussion feels to be of the footstomp or guitar body slap variety and is all needed, as the instruments shimmy around each other. Stewart breaks rank with a dance of melody, shards of accordion now cutting across. The two instruments run off together, the band keeping pace and it is a start worthy of a contented smile, augmented by nods of encouragement to the toots of saxophone. It ends as it begins.

O Mo Dh Thaich is clearly a Gaelic air, and is, although its lineage I couldn’t find, nor much reference to Ailean Mac Innes, but it is a beautiful slow lament, piano to the fore, with tiny squalls of fiddle squabbling in the background. Translating as Oh My Home, the fiddle then picks up the main melody, it continuing as a majestic and wistful duet. McCreadie ups the tempo of his piano flurries, Stewart’s broad sweeps regardless, distant accordion and fluttering sax just as it closes. Brackets is more lively, a squeezy accordion giving the muscle about which the track builds, with a choppy camber, and a mix of picked guitar and fiddle strings. Carmichael starts blowing and it is like the stop and start elemental windscape of a Hebridean ferry. Sax and accordion go really well together, who knew? Carmichael’s main tone, here, is that blowy rumble, not that much distant from Van Morrison’s Inarticulate through Healing Years, if with more variety.

A plaintive fiddle now starts up, suggestive of another highland lament. A scan of the credits suggest G.S. McLennan, initially having me think of Grant and the Go-Betweens, but he was Grant W. This one, G.S., better known as GS, or even Pipe-Major, was a Scottish piper, and Nona is a lament to his wife. Piano tinkles in and guitar adds some texture. It is a beauty, and when Carmichael peals in, this is when that magic spot is truly hit. The longest single tune here, the builds, up down and sideways, are sweet, sometimes surprising and supremely satisfying. Yellowhammer has then a more orthodox jazzy start of piano syncopation before the fiddle again sears off skyward. Guitar provides the bridge between, the saxophone siding with the piano, the accordion with the fiddle. What feels more like improv fills out the middle selection, if keeping a handle on the melody, before a simpler guitar and piano motif sweeps the accordion, and, a touch later sax, forward to the close.

Scarba is a triad of traditional, trad-ish (from Cape Breton) and a new Stewart composition. The accordion leads off here, with Stewart bowing the titular lonely air, piano adding some spare additional ballast, before Dennis Lanctot’s, an energetic piece by Canadian fiddler, Jerry Holland. MacDonald joins and takes charge here, the rhythm section of piano and guitar keeping pace. As Carmichael too joins in, his instrument in unison with MacDonald and Stewart it is, for a moment, all Dirty Linen, if misremembered. Blurring into Stewart’s March Fly finale, it is clear all are firing off each other and having a grand old time. This leads into a paired set, both by Stewart, Cam and Mia’s, leaking into Sheona The Fixer, the first being close to an orthodox reel, held together with McCreadie’s decisive chords and Bruce Hornsby-esque right hand. A lovely bit of composition, it flows into the bubbly accordion and back again. If mainly a piano showcase, the bridge takes us to a more ensemble piece, starting with perhaps the best example of White’s guitar playing thus far.

Two trads now make up Calum A’Ghinnle, with An Crann-tra the second tune, together the longest overall selection. Fiddle and sparse guitar start it off beautifully, free of any additional for the first minute or two. McCreadie and Stewart, before piano and accordion sneak unobtrusively in. McCreadie and Stewart then wrestle for control, Carmichael egging them on from the sidelines, until it becomes clear they can work together. Stewart may be taking the lead, with MacDonald, but without the other three, it would be futile. Realising this is becoming quite a heavy musical feast, a trou Normand is required to sustain the concentration, this coming by way of the, mainly, sax and fiddle interlude of Bishop Hill, a simple and stately tune that carries us to the closer, West Lomond. Which fires straight off on another flurry of McCreadie slip notes. White is strumming gracefully beside him, Stewart looping in some variations, that bring MacDonald slowly to life, her accordion picking up and running with him. Where’s Carmichael? Right there, dafty, ready to steal control, direction and tempo. And if it seems to lose a little direction, it is only to make it easier for the others to find it again, it becoming a triumphant march, ahead of finally succumbing.

Wow.

Heady, heady stuff, and exhilarating, both as an exhaustive immerse or a casual dip. Here’s Nona, a gentler tune, to wet your whistle:

Skreel online : Bandcamp / Charlie Stewart Facebook / Matt Carmichael Facebook / Megan MacDonald Facebook / Fergus McCreadie Facebook / Innes White Facebook

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