Shetland fiddle music gets a buoyant bounce in this first solo outing from the Peatbog fiddle man.

Release date: 3rd May 2024

Label: Self-Released

Format: CD / digital

Couper gets about a bit, the past few years seeing him crop up in many a combination, as a band member, in duos, with his brother, Ryan, or with Tom Oakes, and more besides. Our last sighting of him was with Peatbog Faeries, where he has, over a decade, become an integral focus. Here he get to set loose on his own, albeit with a well selected bunch of compadres to bolster the boost of his Shetlands inspired muse. They are Sam Mabbett, melodeon, and Michael Biggins, piano, together two thirds of The Canny Band, and separately just about everywhere, together with the steady hands of Paul Jennings on drums (Croft No. 5, Old Blind Dogs), most recently part of Ali Hutton and Laura-Beth Salter’s From The Ground ensemble. The redoubtable Duncan Lyall also guests to add muscular bass.

Let’s talk about the drums, with the opening track, Da Clubb, instantly dispelling any possible concerns. Concerns? Well, let’s just say that Scottish folk/trad derived music has sometimes had an awkward relationship with drums, with the percussion provided sometimes erring a little too much on the delicate, as if full drumkits were a bit jejune. We now know otherwise and Jennings certainly does. Indeed, the whole band launch into the opening part, with a spirited wallop. Even Biggins, renowned for his intricate flow of notes is content to lay down slabs of broad finger power chords. It’s a monster start, a couple of minutes of power folk neo-trad that belies the instrumentation or expectation. (Play loud!) With two further parts, it becomes the softer and more melodic Farewell To Dumbarton Road, ahead the closing segment, Clunie Road, with Couper drawing out, first, long melancholic notes with his bow, and then some sinuous interplay with Biggins. Jennings is now moving back and forth to cajon, something he is a bit of an whizz on. Grand stuff!

Da Delting Bridal March is a traditional Shetland air for, you guessed it, having been played at Couper’s own. Starting as a piano and fiddle duet, it is a slow and stately processional. Gradually Jennings and Mabbett slot in for a glorious sway, the eventual harmony found between the fiddle and the melodeon something quite special. Reels AF is a lively threesome, one learnt, one trad and one by Couper. Union Street Sessions kicks off in the inimitable ceilidh style of the Northern Isles, unison play with the rhythmically propulsive piano that Biggins is the master of, sequencing seamlessly into The Abbey Reel, before Margaret Robertson’s, named for Couper’s Ma, brings it all home, Biggins is now throwing in some positively honky-tonk shapes.

Da Lang Ayre starts with an angular geometric stand off between the rhythm section and the melody line, gradually sharing some middle ground, then losing it again. It’s a canny construction, right enough, called Trip To Derry, and gives Mabbett some brief first attention in the spotlight. A handbrake turn has it lurch into Da Lang Ayre Reel, where Jennings applies further hand percussion. The trip to Derry in question was Couper’s stag weekend and Guinness was involved. Reganvista is a further triad, commemorating, respectively, a nephew, the mother of a lockdown commissionee and Couper’s Pa. Solo piano notes greet the first, ahead the fiddle firing off into a smoky melody, the notes like a weaving smokescreen. Mabbett and Jennings are no distance behind, and the play is as considered as any band play I have caught this year, each swapping between themselves to catch the ear. Melodeon leads the second melody out the traps, Couper then stepping the same footprint, before they combine, piano and drums the all important underlay, as they traverse Couper senior’s honour.

Chris Stout is a bit of a legend in fiddle circles, a Fair Islander turned Shetlander, and a pupil of the late great Willie Hunter. Unsurprisingly, he is a bit of a big brother figure to Couper. When they played this then unnamed tune, together at 2022’s Celtic Connections, Stout gave some arrangement ideas. Hence the new name of Stoot’s Improvements. Here the duet is a trifecta between Biggins’ piano, Mabbett’s melodeon and Couper’s fiddle, an initially courtly sounding tune, which becomes increasingly sprightly as Jennings wellys in with some syncopation. Keep an ear open for Lyall’s bass in this one.

Final track is Sutherland’s, the pairing of Natalie’s and the eponymous Sutherland’s, one a staunch Peatbog fan, the other being Adam of that name, another erstwhile member of the said band, as well as Treacherous Orchestra, Croft No. 5 and many more. The earlier half has double tracked fiddle and flies like a bird over the far north, maybe returning home. As it progresses, so it bulks up, with the rest of the band enjoining. The second part is a slightly different fowl, made up of skittery percusssion and a repeating motif, a celebration, a flamboyant courtship ritual. And a great way to end the set on a high, not least a smattering of bossa nova creeps into the mix. (Did I say mix? Which is my prompt not to forget it is the able hands of Barry Reid at the mixing desk, becoming quite the familiar and expected sight in Caledonian music.)

Catch the band in full flight, from Celtic Connections 2023, with Reels AF:

Ross Couper online: Bandcamp / Facebook / X (formerly known as Twitter) /Iinstagram

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