It ain’t trad Dad, or not as you know it, as Edinburgh based Àirdan aim for the sky.
Release Date : 30th May 2025
Label : Self-Released
Format : CD / digital
Arrogance or even irony might conceivably explain the title of this opening full length release from new Edinburgh band, Àirdan, but confidence is actually the word that best fits their appropriation of the adjective. And no, rather than revisiting other famed cosmagicians such as Janis Joplin, Gram Parsons, or, closer to home, anything associated with Donovan, or for that matter, Ric Sanders, Cosmic is actually a shortened name for the first tune out the traps, Cosmic Joe, to whom we’ll return.
More than just the culture and music
Àirdan have been treading boards in Auld Reekie since 2021, and are a bringing together of more than just the culture and music of their base territory. It’s true, Paul Sinclair, their fiery fiddler, and Coll Williamson, who squeezes boxes with no small passion, are both Scots, but guitarist, David Lennon, is a star of the County Down and percussionist (and secret weapon) Ewa Adamiec comes originally from Poland. She left there 16 years ago, in search of warmer winters, and it is often her feisty playing that lifts the quartet above those of their peers, and there are a few, rocking the same instrumental combinations.
Rocking?
Well, this may nominally be folk and trad, but she adds a welter of flavours from genres and cultures far and wide. (This is normal in Scottish music, female Scottish and adopted Scottish drummers quite the thing, what with the rightly celebrated Signy Jakobsdottir for one, with Lauren Macdonald of Heisk another one to watch. Heck, up and coming the Laurettes have a whole team to choose from, depending on the night.)
So, Cosmic is short for Cosmic Joe, track one, and is a segue of the tune of that name with another, Pump Sergeant. It relates, it seems, and with far too little information, to a wild night playing board games. (Cosmic Joe in the pantry with a Stornoway Black Pudding?) From the pen of Sinclair, it is a lively beast that kicks off on a round of box and fiddle. The drums bolt on after a bar or so, and drive the melody forward, flailing acoustic guitar the other fuel in the engine room. It all swirls about very nicely and neatly, with soaring fiddle and arpeggiating accordion, leading into the more agitated second tune, from Williamson. A grand start, with some stonking staccato percussion.
Acousticity belied
Dinny O’Keefe’s and Merrily Kiss the Quaker’s Wife are two trad Irish slip jigs, and the quartet imbue these with a passion that belies their acousticity. This is dance music of the first order and no-one need worry about how and where you put your feet, something that can sometimes put off the casual hoofer. A tinge of Eastern Europe seeps into Triple Hundred, two further paired compositions from, again, Sinclair and Williamson. Inspired by the accordion and it’s “immutable A” note, Immutable A is what the first of the two is called, before Triple Hundred itself, which is dedicated to a joint running and drinking festival, a relatively brisk canter that suggests the latter may well have been taken ahead the former, which is possibly a variant of dine and dash.
Stargazers has been in their repertoire from the start, a tune written by a Franciscan Friar, Brother Seán Paul Wood, no relation to the Waterboy, who works with the poor of New York, between writing glorious fiddle jigs, reels and airs. Starting with a near military precision on the kit, some backbeat slides it into more ambient contemporary, contemplative, even. The interplay between Sinclair and Williamson remains divine, each plying different routes through the same scenery, yet unmistakably connected.
Lovely stuff
Gibson’s Patter pairs some scandi, the Senpolska Från Torp, with another jig, Mrs Gibson’s Patter, from Williamson. It appears much of Àirdan’s muse, and indeed fuse, has been fired by music camps for budding traditional musicians, 20 at a time, set across a number of countries, 40 and counting, under the umbrella of Ethno World International. It sounds a fabulous organisation, and has been clearly important in the evolution of the band. The traditional Swedish tune is a churn of lower register accordion, over which a fiddle melody then drones and dervishes, swaggering guitar and pounding drums beating out a rhythm. Lovely stuff, which as it collapses, sets up a stripling sapling that builds into an effervescent tumble.
The production enables each of the four the space to shine, yet with enough join to leave no gaps. This is down to no less than Anna Massie, with assistance at the mixing desk from her Blazin’ Fiddles bandmate, Alex Lyon.
Delighted is shorter and is the Shooglenifty reel from the pen of the late Angus Grant Jr, presented in a way that gives both credit to the quirky danceadelica of the Shoogles, yet seems equivalently a perfect off the peg for these 4 players. Williamson then shows off his writing chops once more, for the paired Dug’s Lugs and Belter Skelter, together known as the Dug’s Lugs. Full of syncopations that belie a bit of jazz under his bonnet, there is even a very short drum solo, a break really, shortly ahead the switch for the second tune, a fiddle led shenanigan that has them double de-clutching into higher octane territory, the drums all leading from the front.
Blue touchpaper lit
Brother Sean Paul, “America’s greatest fiddle playing monk”, clearly made an impression, as it is another of his, Nightfires, up next, a wheezy winter fireside meander, one that the 4 use as the starting point for their regular session jams, which sounds an attractive way to catch the band. For the relatively sparse array of instruments, there is no shortage of variety in mood. This is exemplified by Loopy Paddlers, a brace of tunes from, first, Sinclair, and with that same name, and then Wood. If the first is a blue touchpaper that draws the ear, the second, Oisin and Rachel’s is the gentle explosion. Adamiec rattles all around her kit across each of these, perpetuating the idea of November the fifth, her percussion providing all the ambient cracks and bangs that encroach on that night.
Finally comes the Last Drop, which developed out of a trip to East Lothian, described as a weekend of polyrhythms and peacocks. A supposition, from the title, is that licensed premises may also have been involved, and it is a splendid racket indeed, starting with Sinclair’s Together Again before The Rakers, from band buddy, I guess, Dave Wiesler. Is there a bar in East Lothian called The Rakers? I don’t know, but the very traditional sounding Together Again makes one hope so, and that it is as lively as it sounds. all the more so as it bursts into the second tune. All in all, a grand conclusion to a grand album, where the trad is never quite as it seems. Extremely promising!
Here’s Nightfires, from the Danny Kyle Open Stage at 2023’s Celtic Connections:
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