Assynt – Road to the North
Garthland Records – 18 August 2018
Assynt – an area in the north-west of Scotland famed for its remarkable geology, dramatic landscapes, and Scotland’s first, ground-breaking, crofter’s land buy-out. It’s also the name that the talented trio of Graham MacKenzie, David Shedden and Innes White have chosen, as they release their debut album, Road To The North on August 18th.
Piper David Shedden and fiddler Graham MacKenzie met while studying music at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire in Glasgow, and mutual friends introduced the pair to guitarist/mandolin player Innes White. All three are well-known on the trad/folk scene all over the UK, having either individually or collectively worked with Grit Orchestra, Scott Wood Band, Heidi Talbot, John McCusker Band, Karen Matheson, Siobhan Miller, Mike Vass… just part of an impressively long list. Both David and Graham have reached the finals of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, and Innes is a BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winner. The lads have already spent a few years playing live together when time allows, and so have built up a varied repertoire. More recently, though, they’ve decided to make things more official, and over the last year have been recording with Scott Wood at his Oak Ridge Studio.
Road To The North is an instrumental album of, mostly, Scottish and Gaelic inspired tune sets. The melodies that make up the sets are special in their own right – full of craft and tradition, but with a distinct contemporary flavour. Fiend and the Hound opens the album with a gently skipping march from Dave Shedden set against the backbeat of Innes White’s guitar, and it’s immediately evident that the arrangements for those tunes add another dimension to the music. Graham McKenzie’s fiddle joins the mix and picks up the pace nicely to lead the second melody (A Race to the Top), before moving on to the set’s closing tune, Deadlines, with a fine mix of reeds and strings. In short – a first class lesson in arranging a tune set. Forward Thinking offers a different pace all together, though. Opening a pair of tunes with soft guitar and a lovely fiddle air. Dave’s low whistle takes on the melody as guitar keeps the same, stately pace towards a delicious fiddle/whistle duet. The second tune in this pair (The Sting in the Tail) picks the pace up a little to a light, lilting trot, continuing the truly delightful duet. This is music of a quality that can only come from a comfortable understanding between the artists, a result of the time the trio have already spent playing together.
David’s father is a piper, and since taking up the pipes himself at the age of nine, he followed the traditional pipe band route until discovering folk music at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire in Glasgow, which is where he first learned to play the whistle, and met Graham MacKenzie. Graham studied for a Master’s degree in Glasgow, having trained as a classical violinist at the Royal Northern Conservatoire in Manchester. Immersing themselves in the vibrant folk music scene in Glasgow, it was inevitable that the pair would meet gifted guitarist Innes White. After coming together as a trio to perform David’s music for his dissertation, the natural chemistry soon became clear.
That chemistry also offers variety, and there’s no shortage of it on this album. As if a first-rate collection of tune sets wasn’t enough, there’s Dave’s pipe march Garthland Drive, which is even more stirring as Graham’s fiddle joins in and heads, ultimately, to a fiery conversation between both. Ava May is a gorgeous highland fiddle air Neil Gow himself would have been proud of, and it’s given added pathos as pipes join in the melody. Conal McDonagh’s, though, has more drama to open and leads to the same pipe/fiddle pairing, chasing each other around in a fast-paced adventure, with some artful guitar from Innes adding colour. The One Upper opens with a lively march in Taxi Tam’s, moves on to a lively pipe reel, The Rogue Brogue (brilliant title), making the most of Sheddon’s mastery on the pipes, then Graham’s fiddle leads us to another big finish with pipes and fiddle.
The bulk of the tunes on the album come from David Sheddon, but there’s no shortage of input from Graham and Innes either. The album’s title track has one of David’s pipe tunes among three of Graham’s melodies. Opening with the lively and hypnotic fiddle reel, Road To The North, Dave’s pipes join for, fittingly, Shedden’s, as the pace builds towards an impeccably timed pipe/fiddle duet, Nearly There. The sizzling pace is kept up right to the end in And That’s That. Graham’s lovely, light-stepping reel Mrs MacKenzie’s Farewell To Culloden Academy opens No Way Out. The tune was written for his Mum and featured on his solo debut Crossing Borders. It’s followed by the perfectly matched The Central and closes with pipes to the fore in Innes White’s No Way Out.
Although it’s the pipe, whistle and fiddle combinations that grab the headlines on this album, Innes White’s contribution on guitar and mandolin is nothing short of entrancing. Not only because of the added colour and flair in his accompaniment, but in his impeccable timing as he tempers the mood for more stately melodies, and drives the pace when some fire is called for. His beautifully understated opening to Aiden Jack, for instance, leads to a short fiddle introduction before whistle takes the melody for a spin, and the duo provide another fine pair of duets, with Innes gently driving the pace towards a rousing conclusion. The set featured recently on Folk Radio as a Tune of the Day, and it’s a typically spirited performance.
Assynt provide a final nod to their roots by closing the album with a trio of traditional tunes, Harris Dance. Opening with pipes and fiddle in perfect unison, the soft step of Ruidhleadh Mo Nighean Donn (The Brown Haired Girl’s Reel) moves on to the joyful splendour of Harris Dance and a reminder of just why Jenny Dang The Weaver enjoys such popularity on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Having officially started life as Assynt at Celtic Connections in January (as part of a thoroughly well-received collaboration with Iranian piper, Mohsen Sharifian and the Lian Band), the band have been performing music from the album to audiences in Glencoe, Inverness and Glasgow, and there are more live shows to come (details below). Following this debut release, we can expect a growing demand for tickets to those gigs. Refreshingly contemporary in their approach, while staying true to their Highland influences both in performance and in composition; with Road To The North, Assynt have created a debut album that marks them as one of our most impressive young bands.
The album will be launched at Piping Live! on August 18th, see upcoming live dates below.
Assynt Dates
17th August – Arisaig Hotel, Arisaig
18th August – Piping Live! National Piping Centre, Glasgow LAUNCH
19th August – Braemar Village Hall
10th September – BLAS Carnegie Hall, Portmahomack
11th September – BLAS Glengarry Village Hall, Invergarry
Album available to buy from the Assynt website www.assyntmusic.com or via Bandcamp: https://assynt.bandcamp.com
Photo Credit: Ciara Menzies