The Fretless

Bird’s Nest

(own label)

CANADIAN foursome The Fretless have won several prestigious awards at home for an approach to music that puts them broadly in the same virtuosic, searching "folk on the cusp of chamber music" camp as Scottish marvels Catriona McKay & Chris Stout and Scandinavians Dreamers’ Circus.

With three fiddlers, all doubling on viola, and a cellist, this is essentially a string quartet and the players involved bring the temperament and musicality of that tradition to music that has its roots in Irish and Scottish dance metres, old-time Americana, bluegrass, swing and occasionally something more akin to a pop song structure.

The tunes are catchy and the arrangements full of imagination, detail, energy and tonal variation as jigs and reels modulate with winning unpredictability, a Steve Reich-like figure bursts into swashbuckling percussive attack, strings shiver with almost backing vocal-like murmuring behind a sweetly nimble melody, and the band rocks with gritty urgency.

Opening track Alphonzo McKenzie’s sings with harmony to smart chip ’n’ strum accompaniment and Maybe Molly takes a back porch hoedown on an improvised but highly disciplined adventure. Word is they might be over this way in the months ahead; they’ll certainly be worth catching.

Rob Adams