Worth the wait, Falasgair blow the blimmin’ barn down!

WOO-HOO…..

…………I’ve been waiting for this one! Attending Skye Live back in 2022, one of the undoubted highlights was catching this enthusiastic bunch of local gillean, both in their festival set and, probably more, the more impromptu session, on the Sunday morning, down in a café-bar in Portree central. Keeping an eye on, and in touch, now have they issued their full length debut. Characterised by the not unusual for these parts frontline of dual whistles/pipes and fiddle, their secret weapon is in adding electric piano to the mix, filling out the sound with the sound of a tumbling burn in spate. Add in a quirky way with time signatures and syncopation, and Bob’s yer boaby!

Described as a mix of tunes contemporary, traditional and self-penned, I’m not sure where the join between these may be, so, avoiding speculation, to me they are all Falasgair songs. A six-piece, it is Jocky Ross on fiddle and Dougal McKiggan and Finn MacPherson who ply pipes and whistle, with Ben Muir on piano. Rounding out the sound is the guitar of Caetano Hayes Pelletti and Eoghainn Beaton on bodhrán.

PROG IN FOLK?

Whilst Just Noise is as about as deprecating as you can get about this glorious music, the eponymous opener is, actually, just that, studio noise and/or tuning up. Possibly even a backwards tape, forewarning the end of days, but it is only for 27 or so seconds, so a forgivable indulgence. Having said, it is the perfect scene setter for Anyway, in which strummed guitar and thrummed piano introduce the theme, ahead twin whistles, one high, one low, keening off into a sparkly melody, mirrored by the fiddle. Whilst the tune is indelibly trad in its structure, already it is the arrangement that is setting them apart from their peers. I tire my colleagues, forever finding prog in folk, yet the jerky rhythms and time patterns are entirely of that oeuvre, especially as the keyboard bass notes add a heft of pomp to the circumstance.

Dragon Steel enters also with guitar and whistle. Top note tinkles of piano emerge, before Muir gets both hands to work, with some sturdy layers of foundation. As the speedo climbs, so the excitement becomes incremental, unimpeded by the various applications of the brake along the way, allowing the music to change pace in an instant. Meelk is then mellower, starting with picked guitar and then one whistle, followed by another, playing in counterpoint. A mournful air, it meanders sufficiently as to become curiously upbeat. If this were a 70’s rock band playing this tune, it would be Camel, the whistles not that unadjacent to Andy Latimer’s flute. As it moves then into a second part, with piano more to the fore, the focus is more of, er, Focus.

PORTREE STEAM CEILIDH

I’m uncertain if the titular Turtlehead of track 5 is scatological or otherwise, guessing it may be. Irrespective, it heralds the entry of bagpipes, initially with a brief and bendy introduction, before launching briskly forward, in duplicate. Ross, as ever, wastes no time in slotting his fiddle alongside. as circuitous a journey as you could wish for, as it becomes a ceilidh, such the head of steam the pipers are producing. Indeed, noting the album credits, I see Muir is also the 3rd piper in the band, suspecting there may be that number here, even if whistles too become apparent, before it hits the buffers.

Silvia’s, with its bracketed subtitle, An Angeal A’ Ghlinne, means Angel of the Glen in the English. One might assume, thereby, it to be a traditional air. However, it seems not, being, actually, a band written tribute to their translator, after an Italian tour. Over ripples of piano, it is the fiddle that takes the brunt of attention for the near 5 misty minutes it runs, if with an underlying tension building up from the bottom, most apparent as Beaton comes walloping in. He, too, is integral to 915, which adds almost an element of jazz to the proceedings. Again, in an alternate universe, I can hear the fiddles and whistles as a brass section, it fitting perfectly, hemmed in by the 4:4 barrage of bodhrán, . Don’t let anyone tell you this goatskin instrument is without nuance.

SAUNA TO SCOLTY

The Sauna was an early single, originally mooted to be separate from the album, but, possibly mitigated by fan reactions to it, in the live set, here it is. A vibrant crowdpleaser of intricate pipework, MacPherson and McKiggan skirl away tremendously, fiddle following in their wake. Is there a sauna on Skye? I don’t know, but, as said, there is steam here, more than enough to make one, if threatening also to fully vapourise in the closing sections.

You need the breather given by Scolty View to gather your thoughts, a more leisurely piece, that fluctuates in mood, much as does the view from Scolty Hill, Banchory, over the seasons. (Without irony, I note, from dialling up google maps, that there is a Scott Skinner’s Restaurant and Bar nearby. Whether anything to do with William Scott Skinner, 1843-1927, the Strathspey King, I don’t know, but it would be appealing if it were.)

PELL MELL FLOURISH

The album ends on a flourish with the inspiringly named The Breakish Storm Sheep. No, me neither, but, back on google, it is a jig from Farquhar MacDonald, and Falasgair tackle it pell-mell. With a sort of Seven Seas of Rhye piano intro, it hurtles into as immaculate a set of group play as can be conceived, the front line firing on all cylinders, led by frantic bodhrán. First whistles, and then fiddle take the lead, continuing together, with bagpipes next peering up through the mix, as piano pounds furiously. A pause to reconnect and they’re off again, twisting at every turn. I’m blethered before the band are, but it stops, much as it started, at the keyboard. And a baa.

This set may have taken them a few years to put together, not to say a successful crowdfund, but the band can be well pleased with the outcome. I can think of few debuts, even in the currently crowded field of what probably counts as neo-trad, that have been as exhilarating and exuberant at this. Bravo!

Here’s that there The Sauna, live from last year’s Belladrum Festival:

Falasgair online: Linktree

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