It says much about Celtic Connections' promotional clout that two groups with not exactly household name status making their debuts together at the festival should attract such a good attendance as this in the face of strong opposition up the road from the fairly heavily marketed BBC Folk Awards.
And next time, you can be sure both Finnish fiddle troupe Frigg and Mongolian folklore specialists Anda Union will be headlining to even more people.
The Mongolians have some Scottish friends, having created quite a stir at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, and as they did there, they brought a marvellous sense of a long and still vibrant tradition with their bi-tonal throat singing, brilliantly atmospheric arrangements and dramatic songs of love, battles and charging horses superbly depicted by vigorously bowed two-string equivalents of the cello. In their formal costumes they look quite serious but there's mischief at work here and their playful dialogue as well as the soulful keening of their solo singers, their extraordinarily rich vocal and string harmonies, masterly flute and percussion and general joie de vivre deservedly took a trick with the Fruitmarket crowd.
With music containing familiar dance metres and occasional bluegrass and Cajun flavours, Frigg may not be quite such an exotic proposition but their superbly matched four fiddle frontline, buoyant string rhythm section and dynamic arrangements, complete with humorously choreographed movements, proved irresistible. Their attention to detail, particularly in the variety of endings, is especially admirable but overall they produced a level of accomplishment and musicality that puts them easily in the front rank alongside recent Northern European visitors such as Väsen.
HHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article