Celtic Connections
Basco & Talisk
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Rob Adams
four stars
THE standing ovation for opening act in the Strathclyde Suite on Thursday evening, Talisk, wasn’t just a reward for overcoming adversity, although a broken fiddle string and malfunctioning guitar pedal didn’t help the Glasgow trio. This was a very impressive set from a group that’s developing all the time and when it puts its collective foot to the floor creates an exciting sound that, in this case literally, drags an audience out of its seats.
It’s not all about hardcore, hard-edged speed freakery either. Variations in colour, dynamics and harmonic ideas from fiddle, concertina and guitar and the integration of systems music with traditional tune forms makes for an absorbing listen. They’re good fun to be around, too, with their unguarded comments about tune origins, and have a promising emerging strand in guitarist Craig Irving’s vocals to temper the instrumental intensity.
Those who have caught Scandinavian marvels Dreamers Circus over the past two Celtic Connections would have recognised their cittern player, Ale Carr, stage left with Basco. A Danish-Swedish-Australian quartet, whose spokesman, Hal Parfitt-Murray, was actually born in Aberdeen, Basco have many of Dreamers Circus’ qualities, playing beautifully realised compositions, often featuring intricately interlinking melodies on fiddles, viola, mandolin, accordion, and Carr’s rhythmically assertive cittern.
Accordionist Anders Ringgaard Andersen also adds very effective trombone to arrangements and Parfitt-Murray’s adaptations of traditional songs Sir Patrick Spens and My Son John showcase his own characterful voice and the collective’s beautifully layered harmony singing. A classy performance that was harmed not a jot by the closing A Flat in Berlin’s having been written in envious response to Carr’s other band’s insanely addictive A Room in Paris.
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