Super! Calaproggylicious funky club night ceilidh beats!

THE BUAIL GOES ON

I think you know the drill by now, whereby the style and instrumentation of the Highlands and Islands gets a spin in the tumble-drier, together with the contents of a prog/indie/electro/funk record collection. And, when you would think all the variations had been done to death and exhausted, well, here is another set of laddies, this time from Inverness, to prove you wrong. Album number two this, it seems, with the first overriding my radar, the quintet are under the firm production hands of Scott Wood (Skerryvore) and Calum McQuarrie (Elephant Sessions), Wood having previously helmed a couple of singles for the band. Let’s hit it with a needle!

AN AGREEMENT TO SYMBIOSE

Opener, Veto, sounds initially about as far from the bothy as you can get, unless someone has discovered that Sumner, Hook, Morris and Gilbert were actually a firm of tweedy solicitors from Dingwall. And, then, just as the groove kicks in, a burst of whistle breaks through the bass, beats and bombast, the two aspects then jousting a bit with each other, ahead agreeing to symbiose. It is a characterful and exhilarating start, auguring well.

Mouse, which follows, is “house”ier, with shuddery keys, again before unison fiddle and whistle sends it flying over the glen. Is that a distant fighter plane scouring the sky overhead, so often a feature up north? We never really discover, as the soundscape, like the Highland weather, has already shifted a fair few times over the space of bars. Episodes of bass guitar jiggery pokery vie with clattery drums, organic and electro-clad, synths chording beneath. This track is very Elephant Sessions like, and I like it

Showing themselves no one trunk pachyderms, Picture This brings in an almost township jive to proceedings, if still imbued with the same sophisticated studio tech as before. And, yes, that probably is a banjo behind the rhythmic thump and swunky guitar, before whistle again takes centre-stage. Run For Cover retains that sense of afro-funk about the basement. The guitar and bass add some dense camouflage, whilst the traddier instrumentation slinks about in plain site. The drums are never other than inventive, employing some skins outside the expected.

A FLITTERING FLURRY

Rapid flute and keys flitter in for the flurry of Syzygy, with an understated guitar lick or two to add additional flavours. Already the sense of this being a whirlwind trip around the world is becoming all too evident, if never quite leaving the braes and burns of home. It will be apparent how little additional information I am offering or, indeed, can. I’d like to tell you who is playing what and where, but, despite contact, Cala remain mighty shy of overmuch exposure. Suffice it to say, Ali, Angus, Calum, Finlay, and Ivan are the band members, and they enjoy a taste for blurry photos and eschewing surnames.

Everything is of their own, the quintet moulding any individual initiatives into joint submission. Along the way and before this album they have shed at least one member. As to who handles the often ornate drums or the jazz fusion guitar that salvos in, whilst this track unwinds, I can’t say. Ditto the keys, woodwind and bass player, having me now question whether the earlier sense of fiddle was in my mind. Or was it?

The Move picks up on the fusion aspect, a slower if still equally propulsive lurch of proggy funk that, surely, surely has a fiddle at the forefront. With the bass throwing in kidney punches right left and centre, sometimes it gets difficult to know where to place your ears, not least as some unfiltered guitar noise joins in, uninvited and/or unexpected. It all ends on a melée of collapsing abandoned warehousing, and it’s quite a din. In a basement bar, or a derelict bonded warehouse, down by the Lochside, it would be exhilarating.

(Not a blurry photo.)

TRANCE-Y TRIP-HOP PASTORALISM

You And Me Both is a gentler construction, with the whistle and guitar wrapped sinuously around it and each other, in a complex courtship ritual, the bass bobbing about above the most restrained drum pattern yet. It is here that the highland fumes flow the strongest, even as the other textures endeavour a detour. Fiddle takes charge, confirming that no figment, and it is the stuff of a million distillery tour vids. Samhla then brings a trance-y element of trip hop step into play, if again the whistle makes sure of the band’s provenance.

These two tunes show off the more pastoral side of the band and provide the contrast that all instrumental albums sometimes require, so as not to all blend into one. Furthermore, the couple or so minutes of Samhla is as uplifting a melody as any Saltire waver might require. In fact, go make a coffee, I’m playing it again.

The final track might invite the risk of failure, having the best title for any Caledonian club night ever, in Drummond Bass. However the integral instrumental wallop of the homophone is spot on, and its frantic momentum captures all the impetus necessary. And, if, as can sometimes be the case, any extra sound seems extraneous, here it isn’t, the woodwind and strings laying down more than enough side to make the concoction palatable to those normally averse. It is a cracking close to a hefty statement of intent from this talented five-piece.

DANGEROUSLY LIVE

Here’s the band, live, playing the opening track, Veto, at this year’s Celtic Connections. Yes, there is a fiddle, yay, and the electronics seem all to be at the behest of the drummer, with a nifty console tucked in amongst his kit, and not a keyboard in sight!!

(Later research reveals that the Calum in the band is the one and the same as the Calum McQuarrie, who produces, and who is also bassist for Elephant Sessions. Similarly it is Alasdair McQuarrie, some relation, one might assume, who is revealed as the guitarist, Ivan Steele on whistles and flute, Angus Walker on drums and Finlay MacLennan on fiddle.)

Cala: Website

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