Recently Heard: A Waulking Tour of Scotland

[ellyssian]

A Waulking Tour of Scotland by Jo Morrison

I feel particularly lucky to be able to play discs in a wide variety of musical styles by many different people and explain how I know them - from Autumn Tears to Meliah Rage to Extreme to Elliot Fisk, but this is perhaps the only disc I own that was personally selected by one of the musicians. I had asked tewok to pick the disc he played on the most, as the recordings were technically works performed by his wife, and this is what he came up with.

Although this does feature Jo playing the Celtic harp, there's a number of other people who join in on this, playing a variety of Scottish tunes. tewok plays shuttle pipe on two tracks and sings on two others.

The playing throughout - even by the guest artists I don't know! - is excellent. I listen to a lot of harp music in a variety of styles, and these performances fit in with the best of them, better than most. Although I haven't verified against every single one of the discs I inherited from my dad, I'm fairly sure there's little overlap on tune selection, Skye Boat Song being the one exception I've found.

Although alternate versions of traditional tunes are not a bad thing, it's also nice to be exposed to tunes you haven't heard. The notes on this disc deserve special mention - they carry through the tour theme mentioned in the title, and take you around Scotland, starting and ending in the Edinburgh area.

All in all, an excellent disc that has already had many repeat playings!

Comments

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

Will you bring it with you? ----oh, never mind!