Altan, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Rob Adams FOUR STARS
The past, present and possibilities for the future were all discernible in Friday's concert, Altan's first appearance in Edinburgh in quite a few years. The past shone on a few choice songs and tunes from their extensive back catalogue, respectively sung with the sweet clarity that has long been Mairéad Nà Mhaonaigh's signature sound and played with the polish, professionalism and attention to relaxed but exact accompaniment of a tour-hardened unit but with the added fire and enthusiasm of a Donegal session.
Much of the material came from the group's current album, The Widening Gyre, and therein and elsewhere, lay the good omens that their recent recruit, piano accordionist Martin Tourish sent out. Tourish is an instinctive, exciting and endearingly enthusiastic player with a knack for inspired, spontaneous embellishments that show a tantalising hint of danger. He's also quite a composer. The final track on The Widening Gyre, The Road Home is one of his, written on the way back to Donegal from the Willie Clancy week in Miltown Malbay, and although it was played here on a different kind of reed, its potential as an uilleann pipers' favourite was striking.
His accordion also brings several new dimensions to the Altan sound, his startling keyboard mobility enhancing the twin-fiddles attack of Nà Mhaonaigh and Ciaran Tourish, the instrument's bass keys bolstering the bottom end and its harmonic capabilities enriching the long- established but always freshly apposite fretting, picking and strumming of guitarist Mark Kelly and bouzouki player Ciarán Curran. As a band, Altan have never lacked energy and over two ideally paced sets they showed that their appetite for reinvigorating the tradition also remains undiminished.
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