Spring Flings, Tibetan skeleton dancers and a few songs at Captain's Bar

Me tuning a borrowed guitar
at Captain's Bar, Edinburgh

I last visited Edinburgh in June 2021 which, I think I’m right in saying, was around the time both England and Scotland were emerging from lockdown. I’d been on a six-day trip taking in Oban, the Isle of Skye and the Sound of Mull. As I wrote in my July 2021 blog post Glasgow was meant to be the start and end point of my island adventures but this was switched to Edinburgh, so I found myself with a brief stay in the Scottish capital. One of the highlights of that visit was discovering a pub called Captain’s Bar which combined my love of beer with my love of folk music. I promised myself I would return one day to Edinburgh and to Captain's Bar.

In 2022 I went to Newcastle for a gathering of dulcimer players known as the Spring Fling, organised by my good friend Steve Gray. It’s an annual event but I missed it last year so, this year, I decided I’d definitely go and, noting that Edinburgh is less than two hours from Newcastle by train, I made up my mind to follow my visit to Newcastle this time with an onward journey to Edinburgh.

Dodging downpours
in Newcastle

The Spring Fling was great fun, despite episodes of incredibly heavy rain. The phrase 'April showers' doesn't really do it justice. But I did get to explore the city a little in between downpours. I’d agreed with Steve and another good dulcimer friend William Duddy (from Belfast) to arrive a day early so I could go along to Newcastle’s famous Bridge Folk Club. The folk club at the Bridge Hotel is the second oldest in Britain. We had a great evening there doing a solo song each before combining as a trio – me and William on dulcimers, Steve on mandolin – to attempt a slightly ramshackle version of Lindisfarne’s ‘We Can Swing Together.’ Taking Lindisfarne songs to The Bridge Folk Club is as close as you can get to the idiomatic carrying of coals to Newcastle.

After three days beside the Tyne I left the ‘Spring Flingers’ to continue my journey to Edinburgh. Based on my previous trip, I’d strategically booked into the same hotel on South Bridge in order to be just a short walk from Captain’s Bar. And this time, I had my dulcimer with me!

I could have visited Arthur’s Seat, or Edinburgh Castle, or taken one of those ‘hop on, hop off’ bus tours of the city but I’m afraid, after reacquainting myself with the atmosphere, the music, the beer and the good company at Captain’s Bar, I ended up spending most of my time in Edinburgh in the cosy surroundings of that wonderful pub. On the first night I was lent a guitar and ended up playing a few songs. Artists perform unplugged so you have to project, and the audience is regularly politely reminded to “shush!”

Edinburgh-based
world music duo
Rituala

I was encouraged to return the next day when world music duo Rituala would be hosting the afternoon session. Eddy Hanson (Rituala’s viola player and a member of staff at the pub) had assured me, if I came early, that it would be quiet enough for me to be able to make my dulcimer heard.

The cast-iron drinking fountain
bearing the inscription
'Keep the Pavement Dry' -
would have been
useful in the
Newcastle rain

But first, on Friday morning, I did a more conventionally touristic thing and visited the amazing National Museum of Scotland. I was very taken by the Columbian Printing Press from 1860, the cast-iron drinking fountain from the 1880s, the vintage cars and planes, the Tibetan skeleton dancers, and what looked like a rather psychedelic dulcimer but was actually a qanbus (or folding lute) from Yemen (this one a mid-twentieth century instrument made of wood covered with striking green leather and decorated with mirrorwork and green and silver sequins. The mirror on the head almost looked like an electronic tuner.)

Check out the
built-in tuner
on this Yemeni
folding lute! 

After all that globetrotting and time travel, I was ready to pick up my dulcimer from my hotel room and return to Captain’s Bar to catch the session led by Rituala. Eddy played his beautifully expressive viola alongside the powerful and clear vocals of Brazilian Giulia Drummond (who also played percussion and shruti box.) Rituala performed a wide variety of songs - including a Ukrainian lullaby - and made all the other ‘floor spots’ (including me) very welcome.

A Tibetan skeleton dancer 
- or me travelling home
from Edinburgh?

Saturday night was, well, more Saturday-night-ish, so the dulcimer was left back at my hotel room and, once again, the hosts very kindly lent me a guitar to do a few songs. The evening involved a few pints of the excellent local ale Volcano, which is my excuse for not remembering everyone’s name - but I did have the pleasure of meeting a superb fellow singer-songwriter called Casey Birks (a fine musician and a fan of Scott Walker.)

For those who like an early night, I feel I should warn you that Captain’s Bar stays open until 1am so it was a slightly tired passenger, lugging a backpack, suitcase and dulcimer, who undertook the seven-hour train journey home. I must have looked not unlike the Tibetan skeleton dancer I saw at the museum the day before. But, for all the vagaries of train travel in the UK, one thought remains: I must plan another trip to Edinburgh soon.

 

 

 

From migratory birds to dream-folk - top music picks from Scandinavia

Some of the most refreshing music of the last year or two has come from Scandinavia. Bands from Sweden like Kolonien, blended Swedish/Norwegian bands like Aevestaden and even the Swedish/Scottish/Finnish/Norwegian melange that is Siskin Quartet. So it’s time to introduce you to some of these Nordic delights...

Siskin Quartet are a melding together of two remarkable duos. English-born fiddler Bridget Marsden and accordionist Leif Ottosson – outstanding proponents of Swedish folk – are joined with Scottish-Finnish-Norwegian duo Sarah-Jane Summers (fiddle) and Juhani Silvola (guitar), whose succession of dazzling albums have impressed music lovers and critics alike.  

Their 2022 album, Flight Paths, takes its inspiration from the theme of migratory birds, reflecting the band members’ own relocations from country to country. All four musicians contribute original pieces, and the variety of styles – and birdlife – is wide-ranging, from Summer’s jaunty opening, ‘The Peewit,’ to Silvola’s gently atmospheric conclusion, ‘Albatrossi.’

The nine tracks cleverly evoke distinct characteristics of the wildlife involved. ‘The Siskin Reel’ is a lively little tune, reflecting the eponymous yellow-green finch, while ‘Firefinch’ (a small, fiery-red African bird) is appropriately a desert blues polska, showcasing Silvola’s shimmering electric guitar, with fiddles and accordion darting hither and thither.

The backdrop is a familiar terrain of polskas, waltzes and reels but Siskin Quartet show a delightful willingness to experiment making Flight Paths, like the migratory journeys of the birds, an adventure in itself.

The first few years of this decade have been dominated by climate change, pandemics, wars... so there’s an urgent need to raise people’s spirits. Swedish band Kolonien, with their 2022 Till Skogen, bring some much-needed joy and optimism. It’s a wonderfully uplifting album, from the opening track ‘Time Will Tell,’ (a determinedly upbeat anthem, despite the climate emergency theme) to the closing ‘Unlearning.’ As invigorating as a cold, sunny, Swedish morning, Kolonien have the freshness of The Cardigans’ early albums while, at the same time, sounding like a Nordic version of Fleet Foxes.

Taking their name from a Swedish term for community gardening Kolonien is rooted in Scandinavian traditional folk music and the Swedish Green movement. It’s a family affair - guitarist brothers Erik and Arvid Rask and their cousin Anna Möller (violin, viola d'amore and Hardanger fiddle) plus percussionist Mischa Grind. (Anna has sadly recently left the band.)

For the most part, the successive tracks on Till Skogen hurtle along, driven by Grind’s ever-sympathetic and imaginative percussion accompaniment, with an atmospheric interlude – ‘Nattsudd’ – featuring Möller’s Hardanger fiddle. It’s a strikingly well-constructed album, the opening and closing tracks are sung in English, the rest mainly in Swedish, with the vocals and instrumentation blending beautifully.

When I first heard Ævestaden’s 2021 debut album Ingen Mere Gråter, I was captivated by the Swedish/Norwegian trio’s fusion of traditional instruments with electronica and vocals. Since then, the band have toured several European countries and were nominated for a Songlines Music Award, so I was excited to hear of the release of their second album, 2023’s Solen var bättre där, (the enigmatic title of which could be translated as The Sun Was Better There.)

There are three elements to Ævestaden’s sound. First, the raindrop-like, ostinato motifs plucked on traditional Scandinavian instruments such as the kravik-lyre and kantele. (Even Levina Storåkern’s violin is often plucked rather than bowed.)

The acoustic instruments are underpinned by the subtle, minimalist electronics, sounding pleasingly gritty and dirty at times, as if produced by an old analogue synth you might find in Jean-Michel Jarre’s attic.

Finally, there are the pure, clear vocals, somewhat reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan, that seem to evoke an atmosphere of lullabies and nursery rhymes. All these elements combine to make Ævestaden’s dream-folk highly original, deeply atmospheric and completely enchanting.

 

Dorchester Dulcimer Weekend - Good Company and a Good Deal of It

Tony Gillam
on mountain dulcimer
Photo courtesy of
Ross Gooding

I’ve just returned from a long weekend in Dorset where I took part in the first Dorchester Dulcimer Weekend. What’s Dorchester like? Well, Daniel Defoe, in A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain (1724–26), described the place thus: “The town is populous, tho' not large, the streets broad, but the buildings old, and low; however, there is good company and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well in Dorchester, as in any town I know in England...” This still seems an apt description, based on my recent visit.

Since Defoe passed through, Dorchester has also become famed as the place where the Tolpuddle Martyrs – early advocates for workers’ rights - were arrested and tried in 1834. The town is also, of course, synonymous with the great novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, who based his fictional town of Casterbridge on Dorchester.

Damian Clarke on hammered dulcimer
Photo courtesy of Ross Gooding 

Sadly I didn’t get to meet The Mayor of Casterbridge nor, regrettably, did I have time to visit Hardy’s house, but I did find the streets broad, as Defoe had found – broad enough, in fact, to busk in, alongside the organiser of the Dulcimer Weekend, the irrepressible Damian Clarke.  Damian (artist, writer and consummate player of both the hurdy-gurdy and the hammered dulcimer) kindly invited me to join him busking in South Street on Saturday morning. I hadn’t been busking since about 1986 – and never before with the mountain dulcimer - so I was a bit apprehensive, but the public seemed to like it and I soon remembered how enjoyable it is to busk. In the afternoon we regrouped to the comfortable surroundings of the Shire Hall’s Café. It transpires this is in the very building (now the Shire Hall Museum) where the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ trial took place; (I’m told beneath it are the cells where prisoners were held while awaiting trial.) Nowadays, it’s a beautiful airy building with a welcoming mezzanine café which proved an ideal venue for our series of workshops and concerts featuring the two distinct types of instrument known as a dulcimer.

Magdalena Atkinson
on hammered dulcimer and guitar
Photo courtesy of Ross Gooding

Damian had invited me - and multi-instrumentalist Graham Hood - as ambassadors of the mountain dulcimer while Damian himself represented the hammered dulcimer, along with fellow composer/performers Dizzi Dulcimer and Magdalena Atkinson. Between all of us, we provided workshops for both instruments plus concerts on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. And, just when we thought the music was over, we were invited along to join the regular Sunday evening folk music session at local micropub, The Convivial Rabbit. The unusually-named pub has nothing to do with the long-eared mammal but is a place where one can have a “convivial rabbit” (i.e. a friendly chat.) Sunday also happened to be St Patrick’s Night so Damian, Graham and our mountain dulcimer friend Paul Crocker (who had joined and supported us throughout the weekend,) endeavoured to summon up some suitably Irish tunes. For my part, I became acutely aware of a huge shamrock-shaped gap in my own dulcimer repertoire. It didn’t matter. Just as in Defoe’s day, at The Convivial Rabbit there was “good company and a good deal of it.”

Many thanks to everyone who made me feel so welcome in Dorset. Let’s do it again next year!

All photos (c) Ross Gooding (Diffraction Image Ltd.)

Accordions, self-made men and cloudheads

If the Grammy Awards didn’t quite reflect your tastes in music, you’re not alone. So here’s the beginning of my very alternative take on some other artists and albums that, in my humble opinion, deserve recognition for outstanding achievements in the music industry.

I’ll start with three remarkable albums by female artists. Emergency of the Female Kind is the title of Amy Thatcher & Francesca Knowles' debut album. Thatcher & Knowles are a duo from Newcastle featuring accordion and drums. It’s quite startling to hear Amy’s accordion accompanied by Francesca’s full drum kit, and with vocals and synths thrown in, the duo create a quirky and often intense sound. In what might be a riposte to Sparks’ 1974 hit, opening track ‘This Town Is Big Enough for the Both of Us’ has echoes of Gotan Project, ‘Power to the Loser’ has some of the edginess of Garbage while the title track begins with a sprightly, traditional-sounding accordion before mutating into an old-school synth motif set against Francesca’s shape-shifting drumming. Winners of Fatea Band Of The Year 2023, I look forward to hearing more from Thatcher & Knowles in 2024.  https://www.atfk.co.uk/

Rachel Baiman moved to Nashville from Chicago when she was eighteen. Her third album Common Nation of Sorrow blends political activism and self-disclosure in an engaging folk-country style. Stand-out tracks include ‘She Don’t Know What to Sing About Anymore’ (great title) and a rewrite of John Hartford’s ‘Self Made Man.’ The video of ‘Self Made Man’ is well worth a watch and captures Rachel’s sense of fun as well as her multi-instrumental musicianship. Rachel is currently touring with a few dates in the UK. Catch her if you can. https://www.rachelbaiman.com/

I’m not sure if folk artists are ever ‘propelled to fame’ but Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow certainly achieved widespread recognition for their theme tune to the BBC drama Gentleman Jack. When I saw them perform at Shrewsbury Folk Festival last August that song certainly went down well, along with the new material from the latest album Cloudheads. Belinda and Heidi are both on the autistic spectrum and the title track to this engaging album is a glorious celebration of their experiences of growing up neurodivergent. Musically, the song evokes a dizzying feeling of sensory overload while the lyrics explain: “Too loud, too bright, just not quite right, everybody’s talking in riddles and rhymes, I need more time to process and find...” Belinda is touring the UK currently, joined at certain gigs by Heidi. https://ohooleyandtidow.com/gigs/

Follow the Passengers in Time blog for more of my ‘alternative Grammy’ recommendations!