Orcadian fiddle joy to beckon in, if not yet a found summer, certainly a spring of some intent.

Release Date: 5th April 2024

Label: Adhyâropa Records

Format: CD / digital

Spring is always a time of promise, with everything anew and coming back to life, with that mood exemplified within the vibrant fiddle music of Louise Bichan. Bichan we know; we reviewed her Hildaland collaboration with Ethan Setiawan last year, this bouncing out fairly sharp on its coat tails. Setiawan is again involved, this time as producer as well as contributing mandolins and octave guitar, as are a number of other guests. But, make no mistake, however much they round out the sound, this is very much her baby and leapfrogs her to one of the very best practitioners of bow and strings. In fact, it is one of the most uplifting instrumental albums to cross my desk in a while, and I get a few.

Auch opens up the record with some relaxed yet strict tempo bow work, proving that the two opposing descriptors actually can work together. Her fiddle is joined by piano and guitar, and it makes for a inviting and swaggering saunter. A downturn beckons in a flourish of piano, the speed now heightened, now the mood that of a dance. The piano, from fellow Orcadian Jennifer Austin, tinkles appealingly, as it complements Bichan’s playing, adding way more than just the percussive drive such an instrument is usually solely responsible for in the Northern Isles. A third tune then steers in a further direction, the whole a marriage of melodies by Siobhan Anderson, by Irish piper John McSherry and a traditional air. It is her own tune, the title track that follows, the Summer it written lost to covid, she far from home and homesick. This has an infectious repeating motif on, I think, octave mandolin, from Setiawan, Bichan sawing maritime air over that base, it reeking of iodine and seaweed. Some double bass adds a bridge and addditional guitars begin to encroach, with an abrupt break, and jagged strums against the grain. A swoosh of whistle, from Ali Levack, sounds positively Tullish, as does the lead he then takes, the rhythms crashing against each other, to an abrupt end.

Adam and Erics takes down the pace of an earlier and faster composition, the piano and fiddle conducting a strathspey that is both delicate and assertive, she being a devil for contrasts. When Brendan Hearn picks up a musical conversation between his cello and her fiddle, it becomes altogether a movement of grace and beauty. Deltingside provides a mini transatlantic session all of it’s own, the eponymous trad air paired with the not dissimilar Squirrel Hunters, from Pennsylvania. This gives an opportunity for some wonderful duet play, with honours swapped about between Bichan and Etiawan, on mandolin, along with Conor Hearn’s guitar and guests, Simon Chrisman, on hammered dulcimer, and the clawhammer banjo of Brad Kolodner. It sounds and is fun. Tune For Claire, which follows, is a rarer beast, a stripped back piano and fiddle air that calls to mind, in mood and meody, the sort of tune Phil Cunningham is so adept at, yet it is all Bichan’s work. If I had to pick a favourite, this would be it.

Apart from wondering quite what one might be, The Little Cowpig, is a wistful solo piece, dedicated to Weezy, the cowpig, supposedly with whom Bichan shares a clumsiness. (Not apparent here, she doesn’t.) My money is on a dog, by the way, the mood and tempo then ratching up through the gearbox for Rhena’s 80th. This has the the flavour of a dignified hoedown, mixing again those opposites, some rhythmic counterpoint laid down by the accompanying musicians, adding a hint, a tiny hint, of New Orleans into the pot, not least as Bichan progressively bends and stretches her notes. A similar mood percolates into Pinnacle, Etiawan’s mandolin now trilling alongside Bichan. A set of three, again matching two recent compositions with a trad. Bichan gets to let her hair down here, particularly as Roger Peppé’s Pinnacle Ridge breaks into Jerry Holland’s Magical Chisholm Household, ending with evocatively titled Little Donald In The Pigpen.

Arnies segues two tunes and features the second fiddle of Bichan’s cousin, Alice Tait. Fittingly, the first tune, The Watchstone, comes from the pen of fellow Orcadian fiddler, Jennifer Wrigley. who herself knows only too well the special added extra that comes from playing with kin. The second tune, Arnie’s 80th, Arnie their shared grandfather, and is a composition written by the two cousins themselves. (Arnie is Rhena’s younger brother, should you need to know!) The first is a leisurely waltz the second a more lively jig. This neatly sets out the store out for closer, Coldstream, another amalgam of the continental drift in initially Scottish music, with an altogether hillbilly jazz timbre about it, Bichan’s fiddle coming over all West Coast string band, which is a great way to end this varied picnic of piquant flavours.

Here’s a backstage pass to capture the title track, useful also in establishing where the respective sounds emanate!

Louise Bichan online: Website / Facebook / Tiktok /Iinstagram

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