Two to crack open, now the holiday has subsided.

Paul McKenna Band – Setting Sun

Self-Released, 5th April 2024, via Bandcamp

No, it isn’t that one, however much hypnotic sleight of hand is here revealed, this is Paul McKenna, the singer and guitarist, as caught on the Transatlantic Sessions, class of 2019. An expressive and in demand singer, his forte is the middle ground of where the Scottish and Irish traditions meet. (Or Glasgow, as it is commonly known!) With the same band alongside him over numerous releases, since 2006, the band includes Ewan Baird (percussion), Conor Markey (banjo, bouzouki, guitars), Conal McDonagh (pipes, whistles) and Robbie Greig (fiddle), all names we have seen popping up on these pages over the years. The six tracks here, from either side the Irish sea, is McKenna and associates take on the songs they grew up with, some traditional and some more recent.

One Last Cold Kiss might appear to be a distant relic of bygone songsheets, telling the tragic tale of two swans and the end of their life partnership. Indeed, if you are familiar with the song, from the repertoire of Christy Moore, you would further assume the same. However, if the fact the swans come from Nantucket rings any distant bells, consider yourself top of the class, as the song was written at the cusp of the 1970s, and was penned by Felix Papparlardi and Gail Collins for his band, Mountain, appearing on their Flowers Of Evil album. If their version is a slow and louche slice of folk-blues, and Moore’s pure Christy, McKenna gifts it with a bit of a purer folk sheen. Sure, it is all acoustic but when did that ever cut off the power supply, largely through Greig’s fiddle and McDonagh’s uillean pipes. When Mrkey’s banjo trips in, all is perfect.

The Lurgy Stream is an old Irish ballad, propelled by the swift strumming of guitar. This gives the opportunity for McKenna to stretch out his tonsils, his voice a smoky relative of Dick Gaughan, if pitched a tad higher. The fiddle and pipes again excel. I Must Go is an old song, found by McKenna, with updated lyrics by the singer, the sad story of ill-fated lovers at the time of their parting. Here his voice has a flavour of Adam Holmes, and it is a swaying waltz of regret.

Solid Ground is the well loved Dougie MacLean standard, here sped up into a livelier lick than is often offered by other interpreters. Issued as a single during this year’s Celtic Connection, no doubt to tap into the flux of sentiments aroused by said festival. This version seems a little too spritely for the gravitas of MacLean’s words, in truth, but does give a good opportunity for Baird to show how to give good bodhran. Western Island is then an Archie Fisher song and, if by putting all the same components back into the mix, comes up again with another entirely new set of flavours, showing the limitless horizons of this instrumentation, in the right hands.

The Wise Maid, another old Irish legacy tune, comes in as an instrumental, with some beautifully subdued electric guitar from Markey, wafting over McKenna’s fingerpicked acoustic, carrying through the theme until the fiddle slots in alongside, pipes gently howling at the periphery. A stunning arrangement, it provides the set with a veritable high water mark with which to close, but that isn’t all. two and a half minutes in it changes gear, a swift acoustic strum ushering in paired fiddle and whistle for a reel that cascades around the melody, until finding the slot to emerge as a tight ensemble workout. The pipes keen convincingly and the band demonstrate they are equally strong a unit without the vocals of their leader, in part down to the propulsive heft of he and Markey in the guitar/bouzouki department.

Here’s the Nantucket Swanride mentioned above:

Paul McKenna Band online : Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) /Iinstagram

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Robert John MacInnes – Ri Taobh a’ Chuain

Self-Released 22nd March 2024, via website

By the sea, should you be wondering, that being where MacInnes recorded this, his debut recording, up near the Butt of Lewis, right at the top of the Outer Hebrides. One of the tide of incoming artists from Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, working primarily in the Gaelic, he works generally alone, accompanying himself, when needed, on piano. On this 5 track disc he is joined on some of the tracks by the guitar of Keith Morrison, responsible also for mixing desk duties. Rarely have we encroached into this purer end of the Gaelic repertoire, but his voice, makes it worthwhile, carrying that same warm and honeyed tone so many from this area seem gifted with.

Ri Taobh a’ Chuain opens with O ‘S Toil ‘S Gur Ro-Thoil Leam, originally a ‘waulking’ song, from the pen of James Graham, a singer of barely the generation above him, and one of the first MacInnes learnt at Plockton’s National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music. Whilst Graham’s version is both unaccompanied and unashamedly rhythmic, here, the addition of some rolling piano gives it a gentler feel and a sense of yearning. Then, with no fear, he embarks straight into a song by Sorley MacLean, the Raasay poet, and this song most recently covered by Julie Fowlis. Dismissing that pressure. he slows the melody, via Capercaillie’s Donald Shaw, right down and gives it a brooding strength, as befits the tale therein; the title translates as The Choice. It is rather lovely, some intermittent choral overdubs giving a sense of organ led background drones.

Smeorach Clann Domhnaill has also been sung by Fowlis previously, unsurprisingly as it is an ode to the beauty of Uist, her home, that makes reference to the mavis, a colloquial name for the songthrush, with the title equating as The Songbird of Clan Donald. Here MacInnes elects to apply voice alone, with some further choral multi-tracking. Bar the language, it sounds like some of the Breton music of Malicorne, which maybe isn’t such a stretch, given the shared Celtic status.

The next track you will know, whether from childhood school singing or from Runrig. Yes, it’s Rabbie Burns’ Bonnie Banks Of Loch Lomond. In the original Scots. Whichever your own personal prejudice for the song comes, suspend that right now, it being consistent with neither, and is a delicate and graceful version, with nary any tang of over familiarity or cliche. (Well done, that man, it’s a song I have long loathed, both from chilly assembly halls and the ritual overegging offered by the Scottish band.) Talking of Runrig, closing number, An Ataireachd Ard, or The Surging Sea, is one they too covered, back in 1985, as indeed did Capercaillie three years later. Each very likely on MacInnes’ childhood radar, if potentially via parental record collections, I would surmise, although he says different. Once more, he tackles it without accompaniment, thus deflecting any comparisons. A slow plaintive air, it brings this pleasing collection to a close.

What next? Will he stick to solo or go the way, say, of fellow, if somewhat senior, Gaelic singer, Alasdair Whyte, and explore some of the wider ranges of expression for his language. Watch this space…….

Here is an earlier version of the last track, An Ataireachd Ard, with piano and three of him, singing in harmony. (I wonder, though, do we really believe it was the Ishbell MacAskill version he heard first?):

Robert John MacInnes online : Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter / Instagram

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