A wealth of fiddling fancies in this thrifty third, from bowman supreme, waiting in the wings for that plaudit, Ryan Young.

HOW MANY FABULOUS FIDDLERS?

Just how many genius violinists and fabulous fiddlers are there in Scotland? The question is, clearly, rhetorical, and the answer zillions, so save yourself the roll call of Chisholms and McCuskers et al, as one that may otherwise slip your ear is the astonishing Ryan Young. Hopefully no more, as this, his 3rd album, is one that could even put the above mentioned maestros in the shade. Really. Having caught the boy, and he is, well, comparatively, at this year’s Manchester Folk Festival, his first two releases became immediately essential expenses, with this one noted and eagerly awaited.

YOUNG + HAYES

And did you clock the other name on the cover? Martin Hayes, the player even the players enthuse most about, the Irishman now ensconced in Chicago, and a lifelong hero of Young. So the coup of catching the great man’s interest and participation is surely something to crow about, producing the album and joining in on a couple of the tunes. First, however, some background bio: Young, unlike many of his peers, hasn’t the fall back of a band to rely on and/or make his name, always ploughing his own furrow, if picking accompanists from the best.

If the MG Alba Trads, the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards and the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year are deemed fair comment, he has a bevy of such awards, 2025’s Musician of the Year, for the first of those mentioned, a pinnacle thus far. Not bad for someone who describes himself as a bit of a belter. Which isn’t always quite the compliment it sounds.

The temptation with instrumental albums like this, drawn from the tradition. is to mention every myriad attention to detail such discs routinely offer. Hence word count gets drenched with the lengthy names of the multiple medleys, and the history of each and every melody therein. Let me cut across that, or try to, concentrating more on the mood and the mindset. To be fair, this time around, Young has aided this decision, with most titles encompassing a single tune, four with two apiece and only one with three. Previous albums have had up to five tunes per set.

ECONOMY & IMMEDIACY

The album opens with The Skylark’s Attention. A slowly picked guitar ushers in some of the most wonderfully bendy notes a fiddle can emit, the sound of said bird’s majestic soar over an empty sky. A haunting tune, it is the economy of notes that really stretches the immediacy delivered, the slowness of this oft more brisk pipe tune making it all the more effective. Whether this is Stuart McCallum or Louis Abbott on the guitar is uncertain; my money here on Abbott, but, irrespective, the baton pass, as the song ends, on a lush guitar motif, is a gesture of true accompanist equality.

Jenny Dang The Weaver is elsewhere a song, but here it gets a jaunty instrumental swirl of a kilt, a defiant flourish of dignified rhythmic prancing. The fiddle leads over some stripped back sparse guitar, the Laird master of all he sings/dances/plays for. Are there two guitars here, I wonder, one lightly amplified, as the other strums, that seeming to be the case. A medley of two follows, I Na’er Shall Wa’en Her/The Mist Covered Mountain, and is again awash with all the extravagant curve ball around each note, something Young is so adept at. The first is a slow tune, the second offering promise of acceleration, if then even slower and against expectation. When the tempo does fire up, it becomes almost a surprise, if no less welcome.

TRIUMPHANT MARCH TOGETHER

Hayes then steps forward from just production desk duties to join Young for a some Irish jiggery-pokery; The West Clare Reel/Joe Bane’s. Any concept of tempo has now to be redefined, as the twin fiddles march together, triumphantly at first. Any tendency to race for the finishing line held firmly in check, it is a graceful demonstration of unison play at its finest.

Back to just the one fiddle, Young launches the aforementioned triptych, The Lads Of Mull/The Countess Of Sutherland/Johnny’s Wedding. At the live show in Mancs I recall commenting how the guitar parts almost mimic more a piano, and that here is true once more. Here the traditional push up through the gears does materialise, with, as the Wedding starts, so Young’s bow is buoyant, with some astonishingly exuberant scraping flurries casually dropped in.

SUBSTANTIAL & SUCCESSFUL PRECISION

The Blackout is one of those meandering melodies that wanders all over the scale, as it sinuously slides around a tune. A guitar, maybe two, offers a middle eight that allows a pause for reflection, before the fiddle again strikes forth. This is, and I’m guessing, an original, as I can find nothing trad of that name. The Drover Lads, I would suggest, isn’t, one of those slightly melancholy airs that captures the feel of young men, occupied in, ultimately, aimless pleasures, as they convince themselves otherwise. A more jolly excursion is received for Ca’ Hawkie Through the Water, paired with Julia Delaney’s, and, as the one becomes the second, there is a realisation that, for all the same instrumentation, the variety of provision here is substantial and successful, disavowing the sometime sense of sameness all instrumental sets can occasionally offer.

HINT OF opORTUNISTIC ROGUE PLAY

Hayes is back on bowing duties for The Ships In Full Sail/Gallagher’s Frolics. Clearly maritime from the off, the spray is reliably salty. Once more the play is essentially unison, or is, until the key change, as individual interpretation begins to allow for opportunistic rogue play, hinted at, if never quite materialising. Final track, Loch Torrodon, like the sea loch that inspires the melody, has a moody mindset, fun of dark skies and dark water, something to be wary of.

I like this album. Less florid than its predecessors, it feels as if Young is learning to relax into his muse, ease off the competitiveness and, most of all, enjoy the process. On that point, I think you will, too.

Here’s a live Jenny Dang The Weaver, filmed nine months ago, in Vancouver with, on that occasion, Alanna Jenish accompanying him.

Ryan Young: Website

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