Strict tempo subterfuge bolsters the old tradition with novel tweaks.

Release Date: Out now

Label: RaJ Records

Format: CD / digital

Fiddle bands are a curiously Caledonian construction, if you discount the estimable Feast Of Fiddles, with Blazin’ Fiddles, RANT and the Kinnaris Quintet all good examples, along with short-lived Battlefield Band offshoot, Fiddlers Five. Heck, I’d even include the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, who give a good night out, even if straying dangerously into White Heather Club domains. Session A9 deserve inclusion in any such list, and have been a round a fair while, if latterly, and wrongly, deemed dormant. But this year’s Celtic Connections saw them back with a flourish, with this album to boot.

Given the size and diversity of the band, they are possibly more collective than any strictly rigid membership structure, and were brought together originally by Capercaillie fiddle man, Charlie Mckerron, for an album project, in 2003. The cover of that album, What Road, explained all you need to know, displaying a (probably) pub table, around which four fiddlers and a guitarist were depicted in mid sesh, pints in various stages of consumption. The fact that session has come to mean both when folk musicians come together and let rip, as well as when beers are bevied, is no coincidence. A9? The arterial road that links Falkirk, in Scotland’s central belt, with Scrabster harbour in the far north, aka the spine of Scotland. The chances will always be, that when the disparate membership meet up to play, most will have traversed at least part of that route.

That’s the history, with erstwhile members, like Duncan Chisholm and Kris Drever, now cast to the four winds, and nearly 12 years since a last release, so what do we get here? Well, Mckerron is still at the fore, as are Adam Sutherland and Gordon Gunn, all three fiddlers, joined by Kevin Henderson, who first hooked up in 2008. Brian McAlpine and the evocatively named David ‘Chimp’ Robertson are also returners, on piano and percussion respectively, rounded out by ‘new recruit’, Marc Clement, on guitar and vocals, from the class of 2012. All have pedigree, with stints, variously, in Boys Of The Lough, Peatbog Faeries, The Tartan Amoebas and many, many more.

The first track, or set, imprints immediately the footprint of before, strict tempo unison fiddles, held together by the tight rhythm of piano and guitar. John Duff Set is a tune apiece by Sutherland, Mckerron and Gunn. Each fit together with that intriguing lock where all playing simultaneously change speed and direction. Clearly, I would have to express some ‘brand’ preference for the second tune, Seoras, spelling variation and all, named for McKerron’s son. A pair of waltzes follow, Robert & Shauna’s and Sandra’s, and you will by now have caught he drift of the band, meticulous ensemble play, largely free any individual bells or whistles. Old fashioned? I’d prefer timeless, my ears drawn as much to the accompaniment as the soaring fiddles, the piano a guiding constant, as it underpins the whole orchestration.

Rachel’s Graduation Day, paired with Tenor Reel, is the first tune from outside the band, coming from Billy Peace, fittingly from an Orcadian, massed fiddles a speciality of both those Islands and the Shetlands, further north. It’s a cracking tune, with a distant hit of Waiting For The Federals, well known from the repertoire of Aly Bain, let alone Ry Cooder. In the second tune McAlpine introduces some wonderful barroom rinky dink keyboard flourishes. Time, then, for a song, and it is one from the bard of, um, Pomona, Tom Waits. A slow and dreamy version, it paints the song in even more of sepia tinted old timey setting than many. It works, Clement having a clear and confident voice, accentuating his origins.

Henderson is responsible for the title track, it having nothing to do with Dougal or Florence, referring rather to one in Swindon. (No, me neither, but it makes me want to visit.) Stepping away from the discipline of style offered thus far, whilst retaining the same careful synthesis, it is a more free-flowing and weavy melody. In fact you could imagine the same tune transferring well to the Hartnoll Brothers and Orbital, should that not seem a leap too far. Friday The 13th is a less frantic affair, a mournful solo fiddle waltz over some measured ripples of piano. Gradually the rest of the band fall into place, as it stretches out the yearning theme into a rich soundscape. It becomes progressively compulsive, needing a check to confirm you heard it right. You did, but the second and subsequent plays make it all the lusher.

Another song, Robbie Robertson’s Twilight, and it is scarcely recognisable from the reggae-lite version by The Band, leaving the thought, so seldom said about that band and their songs, that it would have been better this way. Clement draws out a wistfulness never much apparent in the original. It’s a corker! And the perfect break ahead the septet stepping back forth into fiddle fireworks. The C Set comprises 3 tunes. Am Braighe featuring harmony fiddling, and has an almost Elstree Studios feel, Marc Clement, yes, written for the singer/guitarist, and Eroticon VI, an interesting title by any reckoning. Marc Clement is all dashing away with a smoothing iron territory, syncopating a little as the melody becomes familiar, with Eroticon a spicy concoction applicable and appropriate to end the set on a high.

Uncertain if it is muscle memory or what, this sort and style of playing is steeped deep into my psyche, so much so that it can sometimes seem old hat. Indeed, my first, a cursory listen, led me to believe nothing new or of consequence here, it taking further immersions to open the floodgates of realisation; realisation that, niche or otherwise, this is top notch playing and writing. I’d go further, miss this at your own peril. Keep it up and keep it going, fellas.

Here’s a live taster, from 2022, with a tune not included, with thanks to St Margaret’s, Braemar, for the video:

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